Merkel sweeps to record CDU win

With her re-election as head of Germany’s CDU Conservatives with an uncontested 98% of the vote, a record, Angela Merkel appears unassailable just ten months away from what she hopes will be her third General Election victory in a row. She spoke for about an hour at the party’s Congress in a keynote speech that bristled with campaigning intent. “The CDU-led government is the most successful German government since reunification, because we have the lowest jobless rate since 1990 and the highest employment ever. We have created work and security for millions of people and families,” she claimed. So in command of her party is she that she felt able to launch a barb at her coalition partners the FDP, who will not have been laughing at her unusual foray into humour. “A satirical programme has really said what I feel in my heart when they said: Maybe God created the liberal-democrats only to test us and make our lives complicated,” she said, letting the phrase hang for comic effect. At the end she was treated to an eight-minute standing ovation. One complication that may arise come next autumn is an FDP too weak to give Merkel an overall majority, in which case she might have to seek an alliance with the Greens, or another dreaded “big coalition” with the Social Democrats. But much can change until then.