Members of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) voted to renew a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) Sunday, ending months of political deadlock.
Ministry positions will be announced in the next few weeks and the new government could be in place by the end of March, almost six months after the federal election on September 24 saw both parties lose a record number of votes and left few coalition options for Merkel.
Chancellor Merkel will now enter her fourth term in office, a position she has held since 2005.
More than 460,000 SPD members were eligible to vote in the postal ballot on the coalition deal reached by the two parties last month.
A cheer went around the room of SPD headquarters in Berlin, moments before the official announcement from Dietmar Nietan, treasurer of the German Social Democrats.
How did we get here?
Germany’s September 2017 election was supposed to be an easy victory for Merkel’s CDU, and she was expected to cruise to her fourth term in office as Chancellor.
Instead, voters revolted against the status quo. Both CDU and the SPD barely maintained their status as Germany’s top parties, suffering record losses and losing millions of votes to the far-right nationalist party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), which took nearly 13% of the vote.
Months of painful negotiations
The surprise result spurred months of painful negotiations, as Merkel’s party tried to hammer out a coalition agreement.
After coalition talks between the CDU, the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Green Party collapsed in November, a renewal of the so-called Grand Coalition (or “GroKo”) was the only remaining multiparty option.
Former SPD leader Martin Schulz had ruled out a new GroKo, but was forced into negotiations as the alternative prospect of new elections loomed.
Widely blamed for the turmoil within his party since the election, Schulz stepped aside last month. Andrea Nahles, a former minister of labor and social affairs, is likely to be confirmed as the party’s first ever female leader at a party conference in April.
What does this mean for far-right AfD?
The coalition deal means the far-right AfD is now the lead opposition party in parliament.
The AfD was founded in 2013 and its virulently anti-immigration platform proved popular with voters in the September election.
The party surged into third place in the election, the first time in decades that a far-right, openly nationalist party had won seats in Germany’s federal parliament.