Armin Laschet

Most Germans do not want Christian Democrat (CDU) leader Armin Laschet to try to form a government after his conservative bloc suffered huge losses in parliamentary elections, recent  public opinion polls indicated on Tuesday, as dpa reported.

Eighteen candidates of Turkish descent have been elected as lawmakers in Germany's federal parliament, Bundestag, in the country's elections that took place on Sept. 26.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) won the most parliamentary seats in the national elections, while Angela Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU bloc came in second, preliminary official results showed on Sept. 27.

Germany braced for a period of political unpredictability on Sept. 27 after the Social Democrats narrowly won a general election but faced a rival claim to power from outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative camp.

Germans voted on Sept. 26 in one of the most unpredictable elections in its recent history, with Angela Merkel's conservatives and the center-left Social Democrats in a tight race for her crown as she prepares to leave the political stage.

The epochal election ushers in the end of 16 years in power for Merkel and places Germany, a byword for stability, in a new period of uncertainty.

Ljubljana – Europe is eagerly awaiting the outcome of the general election in Germany to see who or which coalition will lead the larget European economy in the future, the newspaper Delo says in Saturday’s front-page commentary, headlined Who Will Succeed Angela Merkel.

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace admitted to being "pretty blunt about [the troop withdrawal] publicly… a rare thing when it comes to United States decisions." True to his confession of a lack of diplomacy, he added: "I think the [peace] deal that was done in Doha was a rotten deal. It effectively told a Taliban that wasn't winning that they were winning."

The floods followed record amounts of rain that fell in parts of Western Europe.
Professor Hannah Cloke, a hydrologist who set up and now advises the European Flood Awareness System (an EU program designed to provide early warnings of dangerous floods) said alerts were sent to authorities in Europe over the weekend.

Angela Merkel's conservatives were heaving a sigh of relief on June 7 after a convincing win in the last regional vote before a general election that also exposed the weaknesses of the Green party, their main rival at the national level.

The leadership of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has backed its head Armin Laschet as the conservative bloc's candidate for chancellor in the upcoming German federal elections, dpa reported.

Armin Laschet, leader of Germany's Christian Democrats (CDU), won the backing of senior party members at an internal meeting to run as the conservative candidate to succeed Angela Merkel at a September federal election, party sources said on April 20.