In Germany, Merkel's party poised for absolute majority

An opinion poll indicates that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats could win an absolute majority, prompting fellow conservatives to urge Merkel to run for a fourth term in 2017.

|
Axel Schmidt/Reuters
German Chancellor Angela Merkel receives diplomatic corps in the Chancellery in Berlin, July 13, 2015. Merkel stands in front of portraits of former German chancellors. REUTERS/

German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced pressure from conservative allies on Sunday to run for a fourth term in 2017 after an opinion poll showed they could win an absolute majority if an election were held next week.

The results of the poll came a day after Der Spiegel news magazine said in an unsourced report that Merkel, who turned 61 on July 17, had decided to run for a fourth term and had started planning her 2017 re-election campaign.

Horst Seehofer, head of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), quickly took up the idea of the conservatives winning an absolute majority in 2017.

"I believe that is possible with a Chancellor Angela Merkel," he told ARD television.

Merkel has been chancellor since 2005, first in a grand coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), then with the small pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), and now a second time with the SPD.

The CDU/CSU has not had an absolute majority since Konrad Adenauer's third term as chancellor ended in 1961.

The Emnid poll for the weekly newspaper Bild am Sonntag put support for Merkel's CDU and the CSU at 43 percent.

The survey of 1,860 people showed that - for the first time since June 2005 - support for the CDU/CSU was equal to that of all other parties that would clear the 5-percent hurdle required to win seats in the Bundestag lower house of parliament.

Such a result would give Merkel's conservatives a chance of winning an absolute majority if an election were held next week. The change came as support for the far-left Left party fell by one percentage point.

Merkel's chief of staff Peter Altmaier played down the idea of the chancellor running for a fourth term.

"It is and remains speculation," Altmaier told the mass-selling daily Bild when asked if and when Merkel would announce she was running for another term as chancellor. She would decide when she believed the time was right, he added.

Reliable reputation

An absolute majority would give Merkel's conservatives the chance to govern without compromising on issues such as pension reform and the minimum wage, as they have done with the center-left SPD.

Merkel's handling of the Greek crisis, in which she worked tirelessly to negotiate the blueprint of a deal with Athens, secured her support.

"During the Greek crisis, Merkel showed herself to the German people as a politician who can be relied on in difficult situations," Torsten Schneider-Haas of Emnid told Bild am Sonntag.

Merkel has not made any public comments about whether she would run for a fourth term, although she did hint in a speech in Cologne last year she would stand again. She is now on holiday hiking in the Alps.

In a country that cherishes stability, Merkel is only the eighth post-war chancellor. She has no obvious rivals in the CDU and the SPD is openly doubting whether their leader Sigmar Gabriel can beat Merkel in the next election due in 2017.

There are no term limits in Germany and the last CDU chancellor, Helmut Kohl, served for 16 years before losing his bid for a fifth term in 1998 to Gerhard Schroeder of the SPD. Neither were as popular among voters as Merkel. (Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to In Germany, Merkel's party poised for absolute majority
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2015/0802/In-Germany-Merkel-s-party-poised-for-absolute-majority
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe