New government in jeopardy

last updated 8 January 2015

Berlin

The first German government to be headed by a female chancellor may be falling apart before it takes power. Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats, which won a plurality of seats in September’s Bundestag elections, were supposed to form a governing coalition with the Social Democrats. But the Social Democratic leader, Franz Müntefering, has announced he’s quitting as party chairman because of internal party disputes. That news prompted Edmund Stoiber, leader of the Christian Democrats’ sister party, the Christian Social Union, to renege on his plan to take a Cabinet post. Merkel insisted she would put together a grand coalition anyway. But when reporters asked whether she was sure it would work, she responded: “All I’m sure of at the moment is that I’m standing here in front of you.”