A bittersweet victory for Angela Merkel after a bruising election
GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel secured a fourth consecutive term after Sunday's heated federal election. That was perhaps the most unsurprising outcome, for no one - least of all the 63-year-old leader herself - would have expected any other result.
But rather than celebrating, Mrs Merkel is busy licking her wounds after recording her poorest general election result since first coming to power back in 2005.
Her conservative bloc - the ruling centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister-party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) - managed to secure just over 33 per cent of the vote, down sharply from 41.5 per cent in the last polls four years ago. It's a verdict, perhaps, on the Chancellor's controversial decision to open Germany's borders to more than a million refugees. The results are proof that there are widening divisions and extreme discontent among the people, many of whom clearly didn't buy into Mrs Merkel's portrayal of herself as a stable and predictable pair of hands to navigate Germany through an uncertain global economic environment.
While the CDU is still the largest party in the Bundestag, the grim reality is that Mrs Merkel will have to govern with a far less stable coalition than before.
On the whole, it was a bruising and eventful day for German politics. The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party powered its way to a historic third-place success with 13 per cent of the vote, marking the first time in more than half-a-century that an overtly nationalist party will enter Germany's national parliament.
It's anyone's guess how the AfD - now saddled with the difficult task of transforming itself into a properly functioning parliamentary party - will shape German politics over the medium to long term. As Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam commented on Facebook on Monday, the presence of the far-right AfD is a "worrying shift, and a challenge to the moderation and consensus-driven culture of Germany's political landscape".
Mrs Merkel's first order of business is to form a new coalition, after the left-leaning Social Democrats' decision not to continue governing with the CDU. Instead, they will return to the opposition benches, having registered their worst election result in post-war history.
One certainty is that the Chancellor will not be inviting anyone from the AfD to the negotiating table. The only feasible option for her would be to broker a tricky three-way tie-up between the CDU/CSU, the pro-business liberal FDP party that managed 10 per cent, and the Greens, which won 9 per cent. The signs point to her reaching an agreement by the end of the year, but it will also be a somewhat fractious alliance.
Mrs Merkel will also have to reassure nervy investors that she still has what it takes to govern effectively, given that she has emerged from the elections in a weaker state and diminished on the domestic political stage. She achieved the bare minimum at the election by ensuring her party finished with the most number of votes, but that's about all she can be pleased about. It's a bittersweet victory. After 12 years at the helm of Europe's largest economy, her fourth term in office will provide the sternest test of her leadership. But if there's a German politician who can weather the storm, it is Mrs Merkel, who has demonstrated many times in the past that she has the political resilience to stay the course.
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