Crumbling Coalition: Germans Anticipate a Collapse of Merkel's Government

07/02/2010 11:57 AM
Crumbling Coalition:
Germans Anticipate a Collapse of Merkel's Government


Pundits think that Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is in trouble. A new survey has found that German citizens agree. Almost two-thirds think that the governing coalition in Berlin will not survive much longer.

Commentators and pundits in Germany were unanimous: Wednesday's laborious election of Christian Wulff as the country's new president was anything but helpful for Chancellor Angela Merkel's already ailing coalition. A survey conducted by Infratest dimap seems to indicate that voters agree.

According to the poll, commissioned by public television station ARD, fully 68 percent of Germans believe that the election was a "disgrace" for Merkel and 77 percent feel that she no longer has complete control over her own governing coalition. Sixty-two percent believe that Merkel's government, which pairs her conservatives with the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), will not survive much longer.

Wednesday's vote highlighted the deep fractures in Merkel's governing coalition after her hand-picked candidate Wulff required three rounds of voting to get elected, despite her government having a sizeable majority in the Federal Assembly, the 1,244-member body that chooses Germany's president. In the first round, 44 coalition delegates refused to back the chancellor's candidate; in the second, 29 balked. He was finally elected in a third round of voting.

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[link to www.spiegel.de]