Germany's Long Road to Roughly Where It Started
After months of stalemate, the Germans are poised to get a government that looks basically like what they’ve had for eight years. What took them so long?
For four months, Germany—that reputed pillar of stability in a tumultuous Europe—limped along without a government. The country’s elections in September not only a clear governing majority for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, but it also brought unprecedented gains for the populist party Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD), marking the first time a far-right party would enter German’s national parliament in nearly six decades. The Social Democrats, who had served as the coalition partner of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party for nearly a
