Merkel's conservatives celebrate German election win

PanARMENIAN.Net - Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives triumphed in Germany's election on Sunday, September 22 and could even win the first single party majority in more than 50 years, Belfast Telegraph said.

Her centre-right coalition partners risked ejection from parliament for the first time in their post Second World War history. Depending on what parties end up in parliament, Merkel could also find herself leading a "grand coalition" government with the left-leaning Social Democrats.

"This is a super result," said Merkel, who can now expect to serve a third term. "We will do everything together in the next four years to make them successful years for Germany," Merkel said.

According to BBC News, her Christian Democrats (CDU) bloc took about 42% of the vote. But she might yet have to seek a grand coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD) who won about 26% of the vote.

Merkel's preferred liberal partners have not made it into parliament.

The results showed that the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) won only 4.8%, which correspondents say is a disaster for the junior coalition partner, leaving it with no national representation in parliament for the first time in Germany's post-war history.

Party chairman Philipp Roesler called it "the bitterest, saddest hour of the Free Democratic Party".

The FDP was beaten by the Green Party (8.4%) and the former communist Left Party (8.6%), and even the new Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD), which advocates withdrawal from the euro currency and took about 4.7%, just short of the parliamentary threshold.

There was at one point speculation on German television that Mrs Merkel's CDU and their Bavarian sister CSU might even win enough seats for an absolute majority - the first in half a century.