Word: fdp
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...year-old leader of the liberal Free Democratic Party doesn't exactly radiate humor. Asked what motivates him, he answers solemnly, "I burn internally." "He lives for politics," confirms close friend Hartmut Knüppel, who has known Westerwelle since they met through a youth wing of the FDP almost three decades...
...Angela Merkel seemed to be coasting to victory in September - but now the race seems more uncertain than ever. Her CDU party lost its absolute majority in Thuringia and Saar and may lose power altogether to three-party left-leaning coalitions in those states. In Saxony, the CDU and FDP govern together and were re-elected - but for the first time in a German state parliament, a neo-Nazi party, the NPD, kept its seats...
...fragmentation of the federal vote forced Merkel into a rare coalition with her political rivals, the SPD. Polls show that in September she has a chance to dump the SPD in favor of a center-right coalition with the FDP - an outcome that, before Sunday, seemed almost a sure thing. But not anymore. "The lesson for Merkel from Sunday is clear: A coalition at the federal level only with the FDP is anything but assured," wrote the conservative daily Die Welt after the state elections. (Read about Merkel in the 2009 TIME...
...Germany's political landscape grows less divided along old Cold War lines, the power of the smaller parties is increasing, and that, the left-leaning daily Tageszeitung noted on Monday, could make it impossible for Merkel's CDU and FDP to gain a majority in September. "The only thing that is certain is that nothing is certain," the paper wrote. "Now it is clear that we have a five-party system, which in the end could result in a return of the Grand Coalition [between...
...could be that the only way for Merkel to avoid a repeat of the Grand Coalition is to enter a three-way coalition with the FDP and the Greens. But "the federal parties are not yet ready to go down that road," says Alemann. In the end, they may not have a choice...