Germany’s FDP, potential election kingmaker, plays hard to get

BERLIN: Germany’s liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) hopes to reclaim its traditional role as kingmaker after September’s national election, but its leader proved coy on Tuesday over which of the two main parties it might join in coalition.

The business-friendly FDP was the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2009-13 conservative-led coalition but failed to clear the 5 percent threshold to win seats in the current lower house Bundestag.

Media reports suggest it is now being courted by the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) as a possible alternative to the far-left Linke. Opinion polls suggest six party groups, including the FDP, will enter parliament after the Sept 24 election, up from four now.

Neither Merkel’s conservatives nor the SPD would be able to govern alone, opening the way for talks with smaller parties in their efforts to forge a stable coalition government.

FDP leader Christian Lindner appeared to play down the possibility of a tie-up with Martin Schulz’s SPD, which he accused of wanting to strangle German business with red tape, but he also ruled nothing out.

"Schulz wants redistribution (of incomes), for the state to command the economy, more bureaucracy," Lindner told broadcaster n-tv. "Merkel basically wants to change nothing in Germany. At least she doesn’t want to go backwards."

Pressed on which party would be his preferred coalition partner, Lindner said: "That depends on the (policy) content. If it is not possible to implement (our policy) content in a government, then we will go into opposition."

An Emnid poll on Saturday showed Merkel’s conservative bloc winning 35 percent, the SPD 31 percent, the Linke and the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) both on 9 percent, the Greens on 7 percent and the FDP on 6 percent.

Schulz has led a revival in the SPD’s poll ratings since being nominated in January to challenge Merkel in her bid for a fourth term as chancellor.

But his party stumbled in a regional election in the western state of Saarland late last month, with voters flocking to Merkel’s conservatives for fear of the SPD joining forces with the Linke to form a left-wing alliance.