GERMANY: Christian Democrat (CDU) leader Angela Merkel has said it is "highly probable" she will form a grand coalition with the rival Social Democrats (SPD).
Dr Merkel made the remarks after meeting the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), her preferred coalition partners before the election in which these two parties failed to win a combined parliamentary majority.
"The possibility or likelihood of a coalition with the SPD is much higher than the other constellations," Dr Merkel said after talks with FDP leader Guido Westerwelle in Berlin yesterday.
Mr Westerwelle said it was unlikely the two parties could form a coalition with the Greens.
"In all probability it looks like we're heading for a grand coalition," he said, adding it was time for Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to drop his demand to lead the new government.
"It would be right and appropriate to recognise that it's not about him or his personal career, but that it is about the fate of our country. He should no longer stand in the way of a new beginning," he said.
The CDU and SPD continued to push their leadership demands yesterday for Dr Merkel and Chancellor Schröder. CDU foreign policy expert Wolfgang Schäuble said Dr Merkel's leadership claim "is in the meantime not even disputed by the SPD". But SPD general secretary Klaus Uwe Benneter said that by depriving the CDU of a parliamentary majority, voters had rejected Dr Merkel's leadership.
"She is the symbol of social demolition," he said.
Bavarian leader Edmund Stoiber, head of the Christian Social Union (CSU), has indicated he is ready to move to a cabinet post in Berlin, prompting speculation he will be succeeded in Munich by state interior minister Günther Beckstein.