… AS MERKEL TRIUMPHS IN GERMANY
ANGELA Merkel last night swept to a second term as German chancellor, as her CDU/CSU party triumphed at the polls, bringing the curtain down on one of the strangest coalitions in European politics.
The victory brings to an end the CDU’s “grand coalition” with the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Merkel will now forge a more comfortable centre-right alliance with the Free Democrats (FDP).
SPD leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier conceded what he called a “bitter defeat” last night as exit polls showed Merkel comfortably ahead.
Merkel said her party had “achieved something great” and pledged to form a coalition with the FDP, whose leader Guido Westerwelle has been tipped as foreign minister.
The new “black-yellow” partnership, named after the parties’ colours, is expected to implement business friendly economic reforms rendered impossible during the four-year coalition with the SPD.