So it looks like SPD hit rock bottom, CSU is in freefall, and CDU the worse for wear.

Of course, the CDU FDP coalition may not be returned to power.

Merkel could attempt this strategy because she knew that her right flank was covered by the FDP, which would attract voters dissatisfied with the CDU s leftward turn, but then join in a CDU led coalition.

Since 1949, the party system has been dominated by the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

Rita Süssmuth (born 17 February 1937) is a German politician and a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Besides, in these matters, there is no longer much difference between the center right CDU and the center left SPD.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is celebrating a landslide victory, with her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) having fallen just short of an outright parliamentary majority.

A winter of discontent awaits Merkel, followed by a European election campaign that is likely to bring the CDU back down to earth.

In all three cases, the government would be more oriented toward European and eurozone integration than a renewed CDU FDP administration would be.

It must transform itself into something like the Social Christian or Christian Democratic parties that exist in Costa Rica, Chile, Venezuela, and Peru.

The FDP can count on about 13 14 of the vote, which means that it may be able to join with Merkel s Christian Democratic Union to form a government.

Among the smaller parties, the centrist Liberal Party and Christian Peoples Party hold the balance of power.

Whereas electorates across the European Union have punished their governments for the Great Recession and the euro crisis, Germans reelected Chancellor Angela Merkel and displayed strong support for her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), in the recent election.

The SPD will recoil at the prospect, sit on the fence, and finally give in, because Merkel has a powerful disciplinary instrument she could call a new election, in which the CDU would probably win an outright majority.

In these elections, the CDA remained the largest party and the Socialist Party made the largest gains.

He became a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) in 1970 and was a member of the Bundestag from 13 December 1972 to 20 December 1990, (five election periods,) where he represented Tübingen and was affiliated with the hard line right wing Stahlhelm Fraktion.

After a new legislative election in June 1946, the Christian Democrat Georges Bidault assumed leadership of the cabinet.

For starters, even if the current Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Free Democrat Party (FDP) coalition forms the next government, Chancellor Angela Merkel could make longer term and more courageous decisions without having to worry about the immediate electoral impact.

In September 1994, two MPs from the majority Christian Democratic Union published a political statement on Europe, questioning its future, particularly the prospect of federalism.

Merkel barely avoided political oblivion in the last general election, after the CDU had embraced market radicalism and then campaigned on it in 2005.

Andreas Antonius Maria Dries van Agt ( born 2 February 1931) is a retired Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA).

It will also be a government without the Greens, who continue to have a devoted, if limited, clientele, but are now regarded by many as a luxury that Germany can no longer afford. This leaves two possibilities a coalition between the CDU, its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, and the liberal Free Democrats, or a grand coalition between the SPD and the CDU.

The two largest political parties in Croatia are the Croatian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party of Croatia.

Angela Merkel, the Christian Democrats candidate, is a reformer, holding out hope for Germany s future and that of Europe.

But that threat did not materialize. The latest returns, indeed, show quite the opposite in France, Italy, Poland, Denmark, and even Germany, where the CDU had won a large number of representatives in the 2004 elections.

If you want to join the UK Conservative Party or the German Christian Democrats or America s Democratic Party, you can do so easily, and they will welcome you with open arms.

The Concertación is running Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei, the son of a former president who was president himself from 1994 until 2000.

MILAN I have just had the privilege of speaking at the main annual conference of Germany s Economic Council, the economic and business arm of the Christian Democratic Union, the current governing party.

On December 13, however, voters in Chile s presidential election are likely to make the Concertación candidate sweat.

Of course, Germany under Angela Merkel has adopted a somewhat different stance, owing to the Christian Democratic Party s special relationship with Israel.

In the run up to Germany s general election later this month, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats have indistinguishable pro euro positions.

In government After internal debates the party members agreed to coalition talks with the winner of the election, the Allianz für Deutschland , consisting of the CDU, the DSU and Demokratischer Aufbruch, as well as with the Bund Freier Demokraten , an alliance of liberal parties.

Others, like Nooke, who left some time later, resented the growing cooperation with Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of East Germany, which had formerly been a party in the socialist dominated democratic block of parties and mass organisations and had supported the Communist regime.

Piñera s lead and the emergence of Enríquez Ominami are probably expressions of the same phenomenon fatigue with and within the Concertación .

So a large conservative coalition party (much like the Italian Christian Democrats), funded to some degree by the US, was put in place to marginalize all left wing opposition.

Giovanni Gronchi ( 10 September 1887 17 October 1978) was a Christian Democratic Italian politician who became the third President of the Italian Republic in 1955, after Luigi Einaudi.

The political leaders of the Nationalist (Christian Democratic) Party and the Labor Party have enacted a law whereby, since 1994, they alone share more than 200,000 state financing.

The prospect of EU membership for Turkey would also dispel the outdated notion that Europe stands for Christendom.

Contribution to Cultures africaines et lutte contre la torture, published by FIACAT in 2002.

After the Soviet disintegration, even Russia emerged as a credible candidate for democratic reform.

Perhaps the most important element of the federation by exception would be its strong democratic anchor.

The brigade worked with the opposition, while the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) had poor relations with both sides.

On 12 April, Christian Democrat Lothar de Maizière formed a grand coalition cabinet including six Social Democrats, among them Markus Meckel (foreign affairs), Regine Hildebrandt (social issues) and Walter Romberg (finance).

James is his Christian name.

It was founded in 1983 by former CSU members Franz Handlos and Ekkehard Voigt, and Franz Schönhuber was the party's leader from 1985 to 1994.