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German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks at the headquarters of SPD for preliminary coalition talks on January 7, 2017.
With no prospect of an alliance, Merkel’s coalition partner in several former governments, the Social Democratic party (SPD) led by Martin Schulz, did a U-turn on an earlier pledge to voters not to go into government with the CDU-CSU again and began talks with Merkel’s conservative alliance in January.
The decision could backfire on the SPD which performed badly in the last election due to its supporters’ disapproval of its alliance with the CDU-CSU. As such, the SPD is likely to extract many concessions from the CDU-CSU during upcoming negotiations in return for its support in government.
There is also doubt over whether Merkel, known as “Mutti” (mother) in Germany, will see out the whole of what will be her fourth term as chancellor and there is speculation on who her successor might be.
