Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday vowed to work with the Social Democrats for the “good of Germany”, after the center-left party agreed to join her new coalition, but the veteran leader will go into her fourth term with weaker cards than before.

Two in three of the SPD’s rank and file voting in a make or break referendum backed a new partnership with Merkel’s conservatives, heralding an end to the political stalemate that has plagued Europe’s biggest economy since September’s inconclusive elections.

But the chancellor, in power for 12 years, has had to pay a high price to coax the reluctant Social Democratic Party (SPD) back into another loveless “grand coalition”.

Source: AFP