Merkel vows quick change in German gov't

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By Nicholas Kralev

UPDATED:

BERLIN | German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday she wants to form a new center-right government quickly -- at the latest by the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall on Nov. 9 -- after she secured a second term in office in parliamentary elections Sunday.

Exit polls and early results suggested a center-right coalition likely to be more complementary to the United States on Afghanistan and other global issues.

"Germany is entitled to have a new government quickly," Mrs. Merkel said Monday. It would be good "if I could greet [foreign] heads of government on Nov. 9 with a new government."

For the past four years, Mrs. Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats had shared power with the Social Democrats.

In Sunday's election, the Social Democrats suffered their worst showing since World War II with just more than 23 percent of the vote.

"There is no talking around it -- this is a bitter defeat," Social Democrat leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier told supporters at the party's headquarters after the polls closed.

Mrs. Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the business-friendly Free Democratic Party received about 48 percent of the votes, enough to form a coalition government that could rule for the next four years.

Mr. Steinmeier, the foreign minister, most likely will be succeeded by Free Democrat leader Guido Westerwelle, officials from the Christian Democrats and Free Democrats said. The move would make Mr. Westerwelle the world's first openly gay foreign minister.