How is the political climate in Germany at the moment? I paid attention when Merkel got in, but have slipped slightly in paying attention to it.
The SPD is struggling due to the Grand Coalition and have lost a lot of support to the Left Party and (to a lesser extent) to the Greens. The CDU has better held its support, but some have accused Merkel of running to the left of the SPD (or else have accused the SPD of running to the right of Merkel), making support fo the major parties somewhat confused.
Current polls suggest that a CDU-FDP coalition
might be possible after the next election, but more likely is another result with no obvious coalition emerging, which might force the SPD to work with the Left Party in an SPD-Green-Left coalition. (The Greens and the FDP flat-out refuse to work with each other.) No one wants another Grand Coalition.
Of course, the balance of the parties would be different; while the SPD is currently just slightly smaller than the CDU, it would be a lot smaller after a new election, and the Left Party would be much larger. A good estimate of a result might be:
CDU/CSU: 34%
SPD: 25%
Left: 14%
Green: 12%
FDP: 12%
Others: 3%
... Which would mean no majority for CDU-FDP (or SPD-Green, obviously).
