A three-way coalition of Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Left Party seems likely in Berlin, after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party endured a set-back in state elections in the German capital.
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The center-left SPD, led by Berlin Mayor Michael Müller, won 21.9 percent of the vote.
The Social Democrats and chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party have emerged from Berlin state elections as the strongest two parties.
“That’s very bitter”, Merkel told reporters in Berlin, referring to the drop of nearly 6 percentage points her party suffered. The Chancellor’s Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) have been pushed under 20 per cent for the first time in the party’s history.
Merkel added that she’s prepared to address voters’ concerns about the unprecedented influx of migrants over the past year last year, but that if people simply don’t want Muslim asylum-seekers due to their religion, then that would be counter to her Christian Democratic Party’s basic principles, as well as Germany’s.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says despite two recent state election setbacks for her party, she stands by her decisions previous year in dealing with the flood of migrants into Europe, but also recognizes the need to address people’s concerns.
Without enough support for the governing SPD-CDU “grand coalition” to continue and with five parties with very similar strengths, a three-way coalition will nearly certainly form the next government. Given a dearth of options in her party, however, she is still the most likely candidate.
The centre-right CDU won 17.6% of the vote – its worst-ever result in Berlin.
AfD, which has campaigned heavily on the refugee issue, managed to garner 12.2 percent of the vote and will enter its tenth regional assembly of the country’s 16 states.
The result compounds Merkel’s problems after a rout in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern two weeks ago triggered calls from her conservative allies in Bavaria to toughen up her migrant policy.
Berlin’s notoriously inefficient bureaucracy, rising rents and ailing transport infrastructure – especially the much-delated new airport – dominated the election campaign in Germany’s biggest city, driving voters away from the centrist coalition toward the left and right. Then, as polls indicated that the anti-immigrant Alternative party was making gains among conservative voters, the Christian Democrats shifted to promises of putting more police on the streets.
He also voiced concern about the AfD, a party he labelled “the wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
Another analyst, Kai Arzheimer of Mainz University, also predicted tensions would rise between the CDU and its Bavarian sister party the CSU, but he stressed the CDU was unlikely to change its top candidate, Merkel.
“The AfD is appealing to people who otherwise wouldn’t vote, the protest voters”, he said, anxious about the party gaining ground in a city which was normally “a shining example of multiculturalism”.
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Merkel said she wouldn’t accept a “static” cap on the number of migrants coming to Germany, leaving open the possibility that some sort of flexible maximum could be introduced – a position she has previously rejected.
