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Merkel gets bigger edge in `grand coalition'

Germany marked 15 years of national unity yesterday amid deep political uncertainty sparked by the muddled result of its general election and fierce wrangling over the country's next leader.

The inconclusive elections were wrapped up yesterday, two weeks behind schedule, as voting in a district of the eastern city of Dresden widened conservative leader Angela Merkel's three-seat lead in the national parliament by one seat.

Merkel and her Christian Democrats (CDU) were expected to exploit the boost from the poll among just 220,000 voters, which was delayed due to the death of a candidate, in a power struggle with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) over who will head the next government.

CDU general secretary Volker Kauder told public television the vote would strengthen the conservatives' hand.

"We are counting on the reasonable forces in the SPD," he said. "The SPD must finally clear the way for a government under the leadership of Angela Merkel. The country needs that now."

It was perhaps fitting that an eastern city would take on outsized importance on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the merger of the former communist east with the capitalist west after four decades of painful Cold War division.

The country has been at a political impasse since the deadlocked Sept. 18 poll, with both Merkel and Schroeder claiming a governing mandate due to the knife-edge result of the vote -- now at 226 seats to 222.

Because neither of the major parties won a ruling majority, they are now holding exploratory talks on forging a left-right "grand coalition," last seen in Germany in the late 1960s. Their next meeting is slated for Wednesday.

The chancellor's insistence on a third term is seen by many as a bargaining bluff in the coalition talks, and there have been suggestions from the conservatives that he would bow out after the Dresden vote. A Schroeder spokesman dismissed rumors that he would agree to step aside during a strategy meeting of his Social Democrats on Monday as "total nonsense."

And SPD leader Franz Muentefering told German television late yesterday that the Dresden poll would have "no impact" on the negotiations. But he declined to shut the door to a coalition without Schroeder, saying that "we will have to discuss the whole government constellation" in the upcoming negotiations with the conservatives.
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