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Wednesday, 24 November 2021 (YJC)_ Angela Merkel’s days as German chancellor are now numbered– after the three parties that emerged victorious from September’s election set to take office around 6 December.
Angela Merkel’s days as German chancellor are now numbered – at fewer than 15 – after the three parties that emerged victorious from September’s election agreed to form a centre-left government, which is set to take office around 6 December, party leaders said on Wednesday.
Finance minister Olaf Scholz, whose Social Democrats (SPD) came out on top in the four-yearly Bundestag elections on 27 September with over 25 per cent of the vote, will succeed Merkel at the head of the first ever three-way coalition at national level, made up of the SPD, the pro-environment Green Party, and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).
Further details from the leaders of the three parties were scheduled to be released at a news conference in Berlin later on Wednesday.
Scholz will become Germany’s tenth post-war chancellor, and the fourth from the centre-left SPD, after Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schroder. Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have been the country’s dominant post-war party, ruling for the past 16 years and for 32 of the past 39 years.
The three parties agreed in detailed negotiations, which began formally a month ago, to make fighting climate change a centrepiece of the new government, following a campaign in which the topic overshadowed the coronavirus crisis and other issues.
The talks were shrouded in secrecy for the last four weeks, and, unlike in previous coalition negotiations, hardly any details of them were leaked – a possible harbinger that the three-party coalition could break with countless other traditions.
The absence of any leaks until Wednesday was quite an accomplishment, considering that a total of 22 working groups were created with a total of about 300 party leaders involved
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