THE TIMES: It was supposed to be the turning point for the embattled government of Chancellor Angela Merkel - the triumphant election of her favourite conservative, Christian Wulff, as the President of Germany.
Instead of a shoo-in, however, it took nine hours of voting, interspersed by wheeler-dealing and a desperate appeal by the Chancellor before the country could be sure that the next head of state would be called President Wulff.
Mr Wulff, the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, had been pitted against the candidate of the Social Democrats and Greens, the former east German dissident priest Joachim Gauck. Two rounds of voting saw Mr Wulff fall short of the necessary absolute majority and even hard-boiled political commentators started to argue that Mr Gauck, always the outsider, might just make it in a third and final round. In the end, Mr Wulff was elected by 625 votes to Mr Gauck’s 494 - but not before dozens of Ms Merkel’s supporters had secretly voted against her candidate.
The eventual result was a good one for the Chancellor, but the process had exposed her political weakness to the nation. >>> Roger Boyes, Berlin | Wednesday, June 30, 2010
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Wulff wird im dritten Wahlgang Präsident: Schwarz-Gelb ist knapp an der Katastrophe vorbeigeschrammt: Im dritten Wahlgang wurde Christian Wulff zum neuen Bundespräsidenten gewählt, sogar mit absoluter Mehrheit. Doch an dem Wahlkrimi wird die Koalition noch lange zu leiden haben - es könnte der Anfang vom Ende für Merkels Regierung sein. >>> kgp/dpa/ddp/AFP/apn/Reuters | Mittwoch, 30. Juni 2010
