SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: German voters re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday and have enabled her to form a coalition with her preferred partner, the Free Democrat Party, according to TV projections based on exit polls. The Social Democrats slumped to their worst result since World War II and will go into the opposition.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel won a second term in Sunday's federal election and will be able to form a government with the pro-business Free Democrat Party, ditching the center-left Social Democrats with whom she has ruled since 2005 in an uneasy coalition, reliable TV projections of the result showed.
The projections show she will have a comfortable center-right majority in the Bundestag lower house of parliament with an estimated 323 seats, 15 more than the absolute majority of 308 seats, according to a projection broadcast on ZDF television.
According to the ZDF projection, Merkel's conservatives won 33.8 percent, down 1.4 points from the 2005 result of 35.2 percent, while SPD support fell to a record low of 23.0 percent, down 11.2 points from 34.2 percent.
"I am happy that we have achieved a great thing, to get a stable majority in the new government made up of conservatives and the FDP," a beaming Merkel told supporters at the headquarters of her Christian Democrat Union party in Berlin.
"I want to be the chancellor of all Germans to enable our country to do better and come out of this crisis," she said, smiling coyly as supporters chanted "Angie, Angie!” >>> cro – with wire reports | Sunday, September 27, 2009
REUTERS: BERLIN - Guido Westerwelle is head of Germany's business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), with whom Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to form a government after Sunday's election.
He is widely expected to become foreign minister. >>> Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Dominic Evans | Sunday, September 27, 2009
