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Merkel rejects ailing coalition partners' bid for help
[Al Ahram] Chancellor Angela Merkel...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... warned Germans she had no votes to spare as she launched a final week of campaigning Monday, after a disastrous Bavarian election performance by her junior partners. Merkel told supporters of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the northern town of Duderstadt that she needed both the votes granted to them under Germany's electoral system in a general election Sunday. "We have no votes to give away," she said in remarks broadcast on public television, after her junior partners, the Free Democrats (FDP), pleaded for a helping hand. "We will fight for every vote." Germany's 62 million voters can make two checks on their ballots in the national election -- one for a candidate and one for a party -- allowing the option of splitting their support. While Merkel's conservative allies triumphed in the wealthy southern state Sunday, their coalition partners in Bavaria and at the national level, the FDP, crashed out of the regional parliament. Analysts said the result made a third term for Merkel look increasing likely in next Sunday's general election. But it raised the prospect of a nail-biter finish to see whether she can continue her centre-right government or will have to form a "grand coalition" with the rival Social Democrats. Posted by: Fred 2013-09-17 |
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