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Germany's SPD to count postal ballots on Merkel coalition plans
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 14 - 12 - 2013

Chancellor Angela Merkel's plans for a new coalition
with the Social Democratic Party hung in the balance Saturday as the
centre-left SPD began counting a postal ballot of its grassroots
members on whether to accept the coalition terms, according to dpa.
Suspense has been mounting this week in Germany, with the names of
the next Merkel cabinet to be kept secret until Sunday, after the SPD
vote is over.
The SPD leadership has voiced confidence it will win a rank-and-file
majority to ally with Merkel, despite initial fears among party
radicals that there had been too many compromises with Merkel's
conservatives.
If all goes well for Merkel, she will be formally re-elected
chancellor in the Bundestag on Tuesday, with her cabinet sworn in the
same day.
If the vote fails, Merkel's efforts at government formation would go
back to square one. Her only other practical options would be to
invite the reluctant Green Party into a coalition or to call a fresh
election to break the deadlock.
Merkel conceded SPD calls to: legislate a minimum hourly wage in
Germany, which could raise pay for millions, especially in eastern
Germany; lower the legal retirement age to 63 for some, but not all,
Germans; and divert federal funds to the states and municipalities.
All postal ballots received up to midnight Thursday will be counted
at a disused postal sorting centre in the capital Berlin. The
operation Saturday is highly mechanized, with machines to open the
sealed ballots before they are tallied.
The party has about 475,000 active members. The party has already
opened the voter declarations returned with the ballots. SPD sources
estimate about two-thirds of the members will have voted.
The SPD referendum has no precedent in Germany. Normally the upper
echelons of a party decide on their own whether to enter a coalition.
A large number of invalid votes would embarrass the SPD, suggesting
many of the centre-left party's members failed to understand and
follow the voting instructions.
Merkel met Thursday with SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel and Horst
Seehofer, leader of the Bavaria-only conservative party Christian
Social Union (CSU), for talks which Seehofer said were aimed at
settling the cabinet appointments.
Despite the secrecy, Gabriel is widely tipped to become economics and
energy minister, while a former foreign minister, Frank-Walter
Steinmeier, is expected to reclaim the post if the Social Democrats
gain the portfolio.
Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany's 70-year-old finance minister, has been
widely tipped to retain that post.
Political scientists say Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader
Merkel is likely to distribute five ministries to figures from her
own party, three to the CSU and six to the SPD. Counting the
chancellor and her chief of staff, that would make a cabinet of 16.
By agreement, the political parties - not the chancellor - are likely
to have the final say on whom to appoint to their allocated
ministries.
The CDU/CSU alliance narrowly failed to win an absolute majority at
the September 22 general election. Merkel's previous coalition
partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), failed to be returned to
parliament.
Merkel is now running Europe's biggest economy with caretaker powers.
She has negotiated a 185-page policy accord with the SPD and CSU
setting out most of the details of what her cabinet will do for the
next four years.


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