Word: fdp
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...years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East and West Germans are becoming more similar in their political preferences. Parties that used to be typical West German parties, such as the Greens and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), now have significant support in the former East. And Die Linke, an amalgam of the former East German ruling Communist Party and disgruntled Social Democrats, is gaining ground among left-leaning voters in the former West. Voters who were once loyal to a single party have become swing voters, with the main parties taking the hit. The ruling Christian Democratic...
...more difficult to form the kinds of stable coalitions that Germany has gotten so used to of late. Sunday's elections demonstrate the trend at the state level, with potential coalitions - such as a government of Social Democrats, Die Linke and the Greens or one linking the CDU, the FDP and the Greens - being considered. But the states also tend to operate as political laboratories for the federal government, and any new coalition combinations will be closely watched as potential models in the aftermath of the federal election on Sept...
...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...