Germany: Merkel Wins Third Term in General Election - by David Crossland

Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel's conservatives won a stunning victory in Sunday's general election, sharply increasing their share of the vote by some eight points to around 42 percent and putting her on track for a third term.

It's the best result for the conservatives since the heady days of 1990, when Germans handed then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Merkel's former mentor, his third term in a wave of gratitude for his role in reunifying the nation. Germans are similarly grateful to Angela Merkel, it seems, for steering them through the euro crisis.

Merkel's junior coalition partners, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), crashed out of parliament according to TV projections based on results which put them at between 4.5 and 4.7 percent -- below the five percent level needed for parliamentary representation.

"We can already celebrate today because we did great," a beaming Merkel, 59, told ecstatic supporters at the CDU's headquarters in Berlin.

But while her position as queen of Germany and of Europe has been reinforced by her success, Merkel faces difficult days of horsetrading within her own party and with rival parties to form a stable coalition.

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