[mandaladon]

This result, if confirmed, would see the FDP, a liberal pro-business party, drop out of the Bundestag for the first time in its history..............Let's hope we can follow Germany's example in the next election.

[EDINVA]

Happy to read this. I like Merkel. How upside down is the world that the USA has one of, if not the, worst world leaders today?

[smokingfrog]

How long is her term? 4 yr?

[Army Air Corps]

“Liberal” means something quite different over there.

[SeeSharp]

The left must be gnawing at the rushes. The Euro-media have spent the last week crowing about how Merkel had lost support and was going to have to go into coalition with the Socialists.

[LongWayHome]

I have family over there. They love it. They have made a fortune in industry cause Germany still MAKES things.

[Olog-hai]

You mean embrace the social market economy?

[tumblindice]

"That li'l Hunny gives me wood."

[Reaganez]

Yeah,

Fantastic.

Every party in the Bundestag save the quasi-conservative CDU/CSU will be a socialist party.

Without the FDP or AfD in the Bundestag this is a Pyrrhic victory.

[eleni121]

The Frau Merkel...yecch!

[RitaOK]

Big fan of Merkel financial integrity and from her debut as a common sense Christian, I switched a Roth to heavy German stock, just cuz’. Win or lose it, Merkel does it right on debt.

[RockyTx]

Germany has stacked the deck.

the euro is a good deal for them
and a bad deal for everybody else.

a good gig if you can get it

[BillyBoy]

Well, this sounds like very good news, at least for morale. As Impy noted on another thread, all the media were predicting Merkel would get a spanking at the polls and only stay in power by forming a "coalition" government with the Socialists. It sounds to me like Merkel is doing far better than expected and her party (the Christian Democratic Union) is currently at 311 seats, 10 more than the 301 they needed to continue to control the German Congress.

On the negative side, all three parties running against her seem to be far-left wackos (Socialist Democrats, The Left, and the German Green Party... hey at least they're honest about what they stand for!), so there will still be plenty of lefties in government to block anything decent. Merkel's also not even that conservative by American standards, but I would say she's far better than what passes for "conservative" in other nearby Western European nations like England and France. Today's Tories under gay marriage luvin' David Cameron sure aren't Margaret Thatcher's Party.

Since it's usually pretty hard for a national leader to win a third term with an outright majority, and considering this is coming on the heels of big conservative wins in Australia and Norway, I'd say it's a best case scenario.

[cunning_fish]

Frau Furher for life is coming.

[tellw]

A CDU-Green coalition could happen (there was a CDU-FDP-Green “Jamaica Coalition” that governed one of the states).