Germany's chancellor has maintained the coalition government in perfect order since taking office. Will it last?

Gabriela Perdomo - She is a star in the international community and a well-respected politician at home. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and leader of a grand coalition of conservative and left-leaning parties, is arguably one of the most important politicians of our time. With strong negotiating skills and great intelligence, Merkel has brought attention to Germany's enormous potential to become one of Europe's most influential nations again.

At the domestic scale, Merkel has managed to keep a tight grip on the awkward coalition she heads. As leader of the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU), Merkel became the country's chancellor in September 2005. The CDU, associated already with the conservative-leaning Bavarian Christian-Social Party (CSU), stroke a power-sharing deal with the more left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Despite coming from a very conservative background, Merkel has demonstrated in leading diverse parties her immense capacity to negotiate and reach consensus. Moreover, she has managed to appear as a leader of a united Germany that not too long ago was divided into two very different nations of opposing political allegiances. Not without difficulties, Merkel has positioned her government as a stabilizing force in the country.

Since the last election, all public opinion polls have shown a steady support for the CDU-CSU, constantly standing around the 37 per cent mark, ahead of all other parties. The last survey by Forsa puts both conservative parties at 38 per cent, followed by the SPD at 25 per cent.

The three remaining political organizations are below 15 per cent, but their numbers are certainly not negligible. The conservative-leaning Free Democratic Party (FDP) has dropped below the 10 per cent-mark, after briefly emerging in 2005 as a plausible coalition partner for the CDU-CSU.

The Green Party (Grune), which repeatedly stands at around 10 per cent, is thought to be on the rise and some analysts have ventured to claim it will most likely become part of the next coalition government, regardless of which party heads it.

The left, on the other hand, seems to be in trouble coping with its presence in the Merkel government. Before the 2005 election, some members of the SPD quit to establish the Left Party (Linke). While Linke has been garnering a significant amount of support for a relatively young, second-tier political organization, the SPD itself has gradually lost public backing. A year ago, the SPD enjoyed almost as much support as its governing partners according to Infratest-Dimap. The same firm now shows the CDU-CSU leading the SPD by 10 points. Clearly, the CDU and CSU have overshadowed the SPD's participation in the government.

The chancellor has a right to claim her good wave. The German economy is growing at a healthy pace, leading all other Western European markets. Unemployment is at around eight per cent this year, after the worrying peak of 12.6 per cent reached in 2005. Internationally, a golden year is just ending for Merkel's Germany. The country hosted the presidency of the European Union (EU) for a period of six months, a job that won Merkel praise—again—for her negotiating skills after she managed to convince EU leaders that a new European treaty could eventually replace the lost dream of having a common European Constitution. The chancellor also hosted the G-8 summit in June, and was given credit for putting climate change at the top of the agenda and getting the most environmentally-challenged leaders, including Russian president Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart, George W. Bush, to commit efforts to fight it.

But it might be the case that such stability is about to change. Germans are growing uneasy with policies related to labour laws, immigration and energy. A general strike in the transportation sector planned for later this month is threatening to challenge Merkel's negotiating skills once more. A growing economy has raised suspicions in the poorest sectors, where people are not necessarily seeing an increased quality of life. In any case, judging by the way public opinion has behaved with Merkel's coalition so far, it could be the case that the conservatives in Germany will stay in office for a long time—and not necessarily as part of an awkward "grand coalition" with the left.

The term of this government is not set to expire until 2009, and while the conservatives are busy governing Germany, the rest of the political spectrum has started to wonder already what will win votes the next time. Nobody, for now, seems to be a real threat to Merkel's strong grip on the current administration.

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