ONE NEWS

Monday, September 28, 2009 BERLIN: German voters gave Chancellor Angela Merkel a second term on Sunday and a mandate to partner with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) in a government that will rein in the role of the state in Europe's largest economy.Merkel, 55, has ruled for the past four years in a "grand coalition" with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), an awkward partnership of traditional rivals.The election result frees her from the shackles of that marriage of convenience, allowing her to form the center-right government she has argued is best placed to nurture Germany back to health after its worst recession in the post-war era.Merkel, who narrowly squeezed into power in 2005, appeared relieved at her clear-cut victory in an election which pollsters had predicted could again be a cliffhanger."What counts for me is that we got a change in the shape of the government," she told supporters who chanted "Angie, Angie" as she strode up to ...

Sunday, September 27, 2009 Berlin: German voters appear ready to return Chancellor Angel Merkel to office to head a centre-right coalition in Sept. 27 elections. A poll released Friday – the last to be released before Germans vote – shows Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats with 35 percent support. Her preferred coalition partners, the Free Democrats, have 14 percent, enough for them to form a governing coalition. Merkel's main rivals the Social Democrats have 26 percent support, the poll by Infratest dimap showed. That is a jump of three points, reflecting a strong performance by their candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier in a televised debate with Merkel last week. The poll gave a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

When she first came to power, Angela Merkel was heralded as Germany's Thatcher: a trail-blazing female leader who would shake up the country's traditional, male-dominated politics. Yet in their approach to government, they are as different as day and night. At a campaign rally in Münster's handsome city square, the party faithful of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have gathered respectfully beneath the gilded clocks of the cathedral. Although the 55-year-old Chancellor's big theme is decisiveness e_SEnD she and the CDU have it, their rivals do not e_SEnD her listeners take instruction, not inspiration. Eventually, something does stir, as dozens of activists hold up pre-printed placards and start chanting: "Angie, Angie." But the daughter of an austere pastor from East Germany has always been a comforting, rather than galvanising, figure for a nation still trying to create a unified identity 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. "It is ...