Courtesy of Mish.
Angela Merkel won her fourth term but the results were not pretty either for Merkel’s CDU/CSU party or SPD, her Grand Coalition partner following the last election.
Support for major parties nose-dived and the Eurosceptic AfD party is now the third largest party in Germany.
Rather than enter another Grand Coalition, SPD has indicated it will go into opposition.
The above chart from the Financial Times.
With SPD bowing out, Merkel has two unfortunate choices: Enter a three-way coalition or form a minority government. The latter would take pot shots from all sides.
I discussed this setup on September 19, in AfD In 3rd Place in German Election Polls: Unhappy Political Marriages.
If SDP chooses opposition, Merkel could form a majority government via an alliance of CDU (36), the Greens (7), and FDP (9). Currently, that alliance would have a bare majority with 52% of the vote.
Regardless of what happens, Merkel will be in a much-weakened position compared to now.
And other than a miracle CDU/FDP finish that achieves more than 50%, it may take quite some time after the election for the next government to form.
In response to that article, a European reader told me to stop writing about Europen politics because I don’t know what I am talking about.
Stark Choice
