BERLIN – Germany’s Social Democrats, who narrowly won Sunday’s national elections ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, said on Tuesday they hoped to speak to the Greens and Free Democrats later this week on the formation of a tripartite government.
The Greens and the liberal FDP, who are widely separated on many issues, have said that they will first speak to each other to seek areas of compromise before starting negotiations with the SPD or the Conservatives, Reuters reported.
The leader of the SPD parliamentary party, Rolf Muetzenich, said he welcomed the initiative of the two smaller parties to smooth over their differences, but still wanted to speak to potential partners in a three-way coalition this week.
Olaf Scholz, the candidate to become the SPD’s first chancellor since Merkel took office in 2005, said he was hopeful about progress.
“I am optimistic. We will succeed in building a coalition with pragmatism and a willingness to cooperate,” Scholz said on Twitter.
His conservative rival Armin Laschet, 60, has said he could still try to form a government despite leading his CDU/CSU bloc to its worst national electoral result.
However, the Germans are not in favour of another government led by the conservatives: 71 per cent oppose Laschet trying to become chancellor despite his poor results, according to an opinion poll by the Civey institute for the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.
Merkel, who did not seek a fifth term as chancellor, will remain interim during the coalition negotiations that will set the course for Europe’s largest economy.
The SPD, Germany’s oldest party, obtained 25.7 per cent of the votes, 5 percentage points more than in the 2017 federal elections and ahead of the conservative CDU/CSU bloc with 24.1 per cent. The Greens came in with 14.8 per cent and the FDP won 11.5 per cent.
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