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Schroeder, Merkel prepare for first talks
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-22 20:16
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and opposition leader Angela Merkel were
preparing for their first face-to-face talks Thursday on their rival claims to
lead Germany after its inconclusive election.
Merkel's conservatives narrowly beat Schroeder's Social Democrats in Sunday's
parliamentary vote and ended his seven-year coalition with the environmentalist
Greens.
But the margin of victory was so narrow that Schroeder has refused to
acknowledge defeat, insisting he should remain as chancellor to manage reforms
that have so far failed to fire up Europe's largest economy.
With both major parties unable so far to muster enough support from smaller
groups to form a majority, leaders have insisted ahead of Thursday's talks that
they will look seriously at joining up in a "grand coalition."
But it remains unclear how Schroeder and Merkel will resolve their competing
claims to be chancellor, raising speculation that both may have to stand aside
or that the country will have to vote anew.
Merkel was to meet first on Thursday with leaders of the Free Democrats. The
pro-business party was Merkel's preferred coalition partner, but the two parties
fell short of a majority.
With the Greens all but ruling out joining that constellation, and the Free
Democrats refusing even to talk to Schroeder's party, the Social Democrats and
conservatives are under growing pressure to seek common ground for a left-right
alliance.
All Germany's established parties have ruled out talks with the Left Party, a
grouping of former East German communists and renegade Social Democrats opposed
to cuts in the country's creaking welfare programs.
Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and their Bavaria-only sister party, the
Christian Social Union, won 35.2 percent support in the election, compared to
34.3 percent for the Social Democrats.
The result was a shock for the conservatives, whom opinion polls had
consistently given more than 40 percent support, damaging Merkel's authority
within her own party.
Schroeder argues that voters have decisively rejected her call for
accelerated reforms to Germany's cherished welfare state and that his own party
could never be her junior partner.
He also claims the two conservative parties, who have long formed a single
faction in parliament, should be viewed separately, leaving the Social Democrats
as the largest party.
Viewed alone, the Christian Democrats got only 27.8 percent.
The Social Democrats' chairman, Franz Muentefering, on Thursday denied
suggestions that they would table a procedural amendment to formally split the
two conservative groups in the lower house.
But he said it was not right for conservatives to play up their differences
in talk shows and political debates and to attract donations while acting as a
bloc to claim power.
"However secure the common faction may be, it must also be clear that
coalition talks are led by parties ... and that that has consequences,"
Muentefering said.
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