Berlin, Oct 3 (AFP/APP):German political parties will hold exploratory talks from Sunday as they jostle to form the next government after a close election, with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) battling Angela Merkel’s conservatives for the chancellery.
The SPD and its candidate Olaf Scholz narrowly won last week’s vote on 25.7 percent, with Merkel’s CDU-CSU alliance plunging to an all-time low of 24.1 percent as she prepares to leave the stage after 16 years in power.
The result leaves the SPD in pole position to form a government, but conservative leader Armin Laschet has also vowed to begin coalition talks in a last-ditch effort to keep the ailing CDU-CSU in power.
In the complex calculations for a coalition, the makeup of the next German government essentially hinges on which of the two parties can persuade the Greens and the liberal FDP to sign up for a partnership.
First up in what Der Spiegel magazine has described as the “poker game for power” is the SPD, which will huddle with the FDP on Sunday afternoon and the Greens in the evening.
Their rivals, the CDU-CSU, will meet with the FDP on Sunday evening and the Greens on Tuesday.
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