Angela Merkel has been sworn in as Germany’s chancellor for the fourth time, almost six months since the national election, bringing to an end the longest power hiatus in the country’s postwar history.
She received 364 out of 709 votes in the first round of voting in parliament – nine more than required to gain an absolute majority, but also 35 fewer than if all the members of her next governing coalition had cast their ballot in her favour.
Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, who have agreed to re-enter a grand coalition together, have a total of 399 votes between them.
“A clear vote and a smooth start,” tweeted Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the new general secretary of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. “Now full steam ahead for Germany.”
As the chancellor received standing ovations, handshakes and bouquets of flowers from delegates across the political spectrum, she was watched over by her 89-year-old mother, Herlind Kasner, seated on the Bundestag’s gallery next to Merkel’s husband, Joachim Sauer, and long-term adviser Beate Baumann.
After the vote, the chancellor travelled to Schloss Bellevue to receive a letter of appointment from the president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, before heading back to the Bundestag in order to take the oath of office. The new cabinet meets for the first time this afternoon.
The pressure will be on the new government to immediately get down to business, after months of horse-trading and delayed decision-making. Merkel said on Monday her new government’s focus would be on integrating refugees as well as increasing state powers to extradite people who had no right of residence. She has also stressed the necessity of securing Germany’s borders, and developing policies to mitigate the causes of migration.
The grand coalition was initially seen as an unlikely constellation after the election on 24 September, when Merkel’s conservative alliance, the pro-business Free Democrats and the environmentalist Greens strove to create a so-called “Jamaica” coalition. But after those talks collapsed spectacularly, both the conservatives and the SPD came under pressure to revive the grand coalition, which has governed Germany for the majority of Merkel’s time in office.
Wolfgang Kubicki, deputy leader of the FDP, said of the result of Wednesday’s vote: “That was closer than we expected. It shows that the grand coalition is actually going to be a small coalition.”
Merkel received supporting votes from 91% of delegates in her three-party coalition, compared to 92% in 2013 and 89% at the start of her first term in 2005.
Merkel will have to find a way to win over unenthusiastic delegates not just among the Social Democrats, many of whom believe the party should have sought to reinvent itself in opposition, but also among her own Christian Democrats, where there is disappointment over the loss of the finance ministry to the centre-left junior coalition partner.
One CDU politician described the result as a “bad omen” for the coming term. “This coalition has had a bad start, not just because of the unfortunate coalition deal, and won’t last for three and a half years”, said MP Alexander Mitsch.
The reformation of the grand coalition means the far-right Alternative für Deutschland becomes the large opposition party in the Bundestag.
The Guardian
