Merkel Wins Big Victory in Germany

“Angela Merkel’s conservatives won enough votes to secure a third term for her to remain chancellor for a third term in Sunday’s general election, initial exit polls showed,” Der Spiegel reports.

“But she is likely to have to ditch her preferred coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), and form an alliance with the center-left Social Democrats instead in a so-called ‘grand coalition’ of the two biggest parties. It would be a repeat of the right-left alliance with which she governed in her first term from 2005 until 2009.”

However, Reuters reports Merkel’s conservatives are “on track for absolute majority in Parliament after German election.”