Merkel begins third term with bigger challenges

The German parliament has finally elected Angela Merkel as the Chancellor for the third term ending nearly three month's uncertainty since elections that forced her to seek grand coalition with her political rivals. Merkel, 59, who is now set to govern Europe's biggest economy, has been re-elected by 462 votes with 150 opposing and 9 abstentions.

The victory of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the hard-fought national elections did not come as a surprise even though a razor-thin advantage was predicted about the outcome of the polls. She had fallen short narrowly of absolute majority, but Merkel curved out a niche for herself in the post-war German history through this election. For, she has returned to power for the third term in a row - a feat that has few parallels in the Germany. Moreover, the extraordinary electoral success came after many years in a country which is not much willing to return to power the incumbent government. Nevertheless, Angela Merkel's centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) elbowed out the centre-left Social democratic party (SDP) with a wide gap in the popular votes although the gap in terms of seats is a relatively narrow. The CDU and its ally CSU garnered more than 41 per cent of the votes while the SDU had to remain content with only nearly 26 per cent of the votes. Merkel's share in the 630-member Bundestag (parliament) is 311 seats - little short of absolute majority. It is the collapse of ally Free Democratic party (FDP which failed to secure a minimum five per cent of the votes required to win any seat in parliament, a slump of 10 per cent against the last elections in 2009 that  denied the Chancellor outright victory.

The victory was seen by most analysts as a personal triumph for the most powerful politician in the Europe these days, who has already established herself as the most influential woman leader across the globe. Her firmness in dealing with sensitive and debatable issues backed by an unassailable ascendancy in the party affairs was largely responsible for her new height in politics. In most recent times, what other women leaders in power in the developed nations could not achieve, Merkel accomplished successfully -- confronting oppositions both in side the party and beyond. Australia's Julia Gillard was the victim of her failure to maintain command in her party as she was given a taste of her own medicine by Kevin Rudd, who over threw her from party leadership as he himself was the victim earlier in the same fashion engineered by Gillard. Now, both the politicians have retired from politics in Australia. The German Chancellor reminds the British iron lady Margaret Thatcher - even though Merkel is not as such called as a "tough" person. She has not been either aggressive or abrasive.

She steered Germany through a difficult period during the term that has just ended as several problems including the Euro zone issue emerged as a quite contentious matter. Her austerity measures might have dismayed many Germans, but at the end of day, she has been able to convince most countrymen that this has been a pragmatic policy that deserved to be supported. Germany often feels the need for taking the centre stage of international affairs despite not being a member of the United Nations Security Council, and Merkel's strong presence in the global affairs has given the Germans that impression. She followed an independent policy in the key foreign policy matters including the Iraq and Afghan crises and of late on the Syrian civil war even though her country is inextricably linked with the West. Merkel demonstrated patience and wisdom in dealing with the economic issues that have direct bearing on her country and the Europe. Thirty eight per cent of the voters in the polls said that they supported the CDU-CSU mainly because of the personality of the Chancellor Angela Merkel and this is a measure of her popularity in the German politics.

There must not be any illusion that Merkel's win was overwhelming as the percentage of popular votes and the number of seats would suggest, but the bottom line is that taking the CDU-CSU to power for the straight three terms is no mean achievement. This helped both Germany and personally Merkel, who originally came from the erstwhile East Germany, play a more important role in the world affairs.

The SDP, which was once led by such world figure like Willy Brandt, must be licking its wounds although the forecast before the elections was for Merkel - albeit in a close call. The party needed revamping as well as tailoring itself to move close to the electorate on key issues. Now that she has been re-elected with convincing support following understanding in the grand coalition with some political opponents, Merkel's third term is likely to be morec assertive while she would face bigger challenges at home to live up to the expectations and confront global issues that may be harder for settlements.

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