Merkel gains some momentum in German chancellor race
September 21, 2005The German elections–the gift that keeps on giving for us political junkies. The latest is that the conservative leader, Angela Merkel, has won strong backing from her coalition. Despite the fact that they won far fewer seats and votes than the polls had projected.
I’m thinking the party memebers are simply closing ranks to try and help their party win the chancellorship. Clearly they have to be disappointed with how her campaign failed to convert a sizeable lead in the polls into a decisive win. But if the conservatives are to have any chance of forming a government they need to be a solid front so that they can negotiate from strength with potential coalition partners.
Cannot wait to see what happens. I would love a really wacky alliance, like the leftist Greens working with Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats. That would be fun, I’d love to place bets on how long a government like that would last before a no-confidence vote forces another election.
Of course the perfect scenario is that neither the incumbent Schroeder nor Merkel are able to form a government and Germans are forced into another round of elections. That’s the cool stuff I love about multi-party parliamentary governments.
Kind makes me wish we had one here, spice things up with weird coalitions trying to govern. Could you imagine like a liberal pro-environment California party forming a coalition with, say a conservative southern party? The possibilities are awesome.
Oh well, I’ll have to live vicariously through the German election for now.
TrackBack URI