The Social Democrats’ candidate for Germany’s next chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said his party has received a mandate to form a government with the Greens and liberal FDP rather than with its old partner, Merkel’s center-right bloc.
“The voters have very clearly spoken. They said who should form the next government,” Scholz said on Monday.
They strengthened three parties – the Social Democrats, the Greens and FDP [Free Democratic Party]– and therefore that is the clear mandate that the citizens of this country have given. These three should form the next government.
Scholz, the Social Democratic Party’s (SPD) candidate to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor, made his statement after the party came first in Sunday’s vote with 25.7%, while its chief rival, the center-right CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union) alliance, showed the worst performance since 1949 with 24.1% of the vote. The parties had governed the country in a coalition before the election.
Scholz added that the CDU/CSU have “received the message from the citizens that they should no longer be in the government, but go into opposition.”
RT