German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday said she is open to negotiations with her centre-left rivals on forming a coalition Government after her hat-trick victory in Parliamentary elections, but fell short of absolute majority.
Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) finished four seats short of an absolute majority in the new Bundestag, lower House of Parliament, one of the best results achieved by the conservatives.
The two parties together polled 41.7 per cent of the votes, nearly right per cent more than in the last election four years ago and secured a total of 311 seats in the lower house, according to official results published on Monday.
The CDU had achieved the absolute majority only once in 1957 under the leadership of the country’s first post-World War II chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Merkel is only the third post-war chancellor to win a third four-year term.
The results are seen as a strong endorsement of 59-year- old Merkel’s leadership during the euro zone debt crisis and her government’s policies, which contributed to economic stability at home, low unemployment level and a higher standard of living than in many of Germany’s EU partners. PTI