Berlin (March 14, 2018): Angela Merkel has been re-elected as German chancellor to continue leading the country for a fourth term.
Members of Germany’s Bundestag voted 364 in favor, 315 opposed and nine abstentions.
“I accept the vote,” Merkel told parliamentarians.
Her fourth term ends more than five months of political wrangling and uncertainty that weakened Merkel’s governing coalition.
Last week party leaders of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) announced that party members had endorsed a deal to form a new governing coalition with Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats.
The grand coalition accounts for 399 votes in the Bundestag. Percentage-wise, Merkel’s previous government coalition held 80 percent of seats; that’s now just 56 percent, The Local Germany reports.
As part of the deal, the SPD now gains more influence over policy than before. The deal includes handing the SPD control of Germany’s finance ministry. 
According to The New York Times, the SPD “is likely to relax the strict fiscal discipline that prevailed” under the previous finance minister, who “enforced the austerity imposed on crisis countries like Greece and Portugal in return for euro-zone aid.
The far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which saw the biggest gains in September’s elections, will now be the country’s biggest opposition party.
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