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Merkel starts her third term
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel was sworn yesterday for a third term at the helm of Europe’s top economy, ending nearly three months of post-election limbo while she bartered with rivals to forge a “grand coalition.”
Merkel, 59, will lead for another four-year term after being overwhelmingly approved in the job by the Bundestag lower house of parliament where her new left-right coalition has a huge majority.
“I accept the election result and thank you for your trust,” she said, dressed in a black trouser suit, having accepted a bunch of flowers and shaking the hands of supporters.
Eighty-six days after Merkel’s conservatives swept to victory with 41.5 percent of the vote in elections but narrowly failed to grab an outright majority, the Bundestag ballot outcome came as no surprise.
Merkel secured a “yes” vote from three-quarters of the 621 deputies who voted in the secret ballot, or 462 votes, while 150 voted against her and nine abstained.
After her previous junior coalition partners, the pro-business Free Democrats, for the first time failed to win any seats in the September 22 elections, Merkel was forced to seek out a new government tie-up.
After weeks of cajoling an initially reluctant center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), their Bavarian CSU sister party and the SPD hammered out a deal late last month to enter a political marriage of convenience.
President Joachim Gauck, who confirmed Merkel and her ministers in their posts, said that Germany needed a “stable government, capable of acting” and stressed “big challenges” loomed, including Europe’s financial woes and on education.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily said Merkel had started her third term with a “tail wind” but warned “the shrinking and ageing of the population is Germany’s biggest challenge.”
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