Germany's SPD seeks talks to form coalition govt with two other parties

BERLIN • Germany's Social Democrats (SPD), who narrowly won Sunday's polls ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, yesterday said they hoped to talk to the Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) this week about forming a three-way government.

The Greens and the liberal FDP, who are far apart on many issues, say they will first talk to each other to seek areas of compromise before starting negotiations with either the SPD or the conservatives.

SPD parliamentary party leader Rolf Muetzenich said he welcomed the initiative of the two smaller parties to smooth out their differences, but he still wanted to talk to the potential partners in a three-way coalition this week.

"It would be good if the Greens and the FDP would also concentrate on meeting us this week for exploratory talks," Mr Muetzenich told German radio.

Mr Olaf Scholz, the candidate to become the first SPD chancellor since Dr Merkel took over in 2005, said he was hopeful about progress. "I am optimistic. We will manage to build a coalition with pragmatism and readiness to cooperate," Mr Scholz said on Twitter.

His conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) rival Armin Laschet has said he could still try to form a government despite leading his CDU/CSU bloc to their worst-ever national election result.

However, Germans are not in favour of another conservative-led government: 71 per cent oppose Mr Laschet trying to become chancellor, according to an opinion poll by the Civey institute for the Augsburger Allgemeine daily.

Pressure was mounting yesterday on Mr Laschet to quit after the disastrous vote.

Dr Merkel, who did not seek a fifth term as chancellor, will stay on as caretaker during coalition negotiations that will set the course of Europe's largest economy.

The SPD, Germany's oldest party, won 25.7 per cent of the vote, up 5 percentage points from the 2017 federal election and ahead of the CDU/CSU conservative bloc on 24.1 per cent.

The Greens came in with 14.8 per cent and the FDP won 11.5 per cent.

Mr Scholz, an affable but disciplined politician, most recently served as vice-chancellor and finance minister in the outgoing government. Although he leads the party opposing Dr Merkel's CDU, he came out on top by persuading voters that he was not so much an agent of change as one of stability and continuity. In a race without an incumbent, he ran as one.

It is a balancing act that may be hard to sustain for a one-time socialist who today is firmly rooted in the centre of a fast-changing political landscape. It is not that Germans have suddenly shifted left. In fact, three in four Germans did not vote for his party, and Mr Scholz campaigned on raising the minimum wage, strengthening German industry and fighting climate change - all mainstream positions.

Despite earning the most votes, Mr Scholz is not yet assured of becoming chancellor. And if he does, he risks being absorbed in wrangling among multiple coalition partners, not to speak of rebellious factions within his own party.

His party's surprise revival in the election rested heavily on his own personal popularity. But many warn that Mr Scholz's appeal does not solve the deeper problems and divisions that have plagued the Social Democrats. "None of the claims of staleness or political irrelevance levelled at the SPD over the past few years have gone away," the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper wrote on Monday.

Or, as Dr Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff of the German Marshall Fund, put it: "Social Democrats aren't offering a new package, they're offering a centrist who makes you forget the party behind it."

REUTERS, NYTIMES