Germans woke up on Wednesday to a new and uncertain political future.
Angela Merkel, the woman who has dominated Europe for more than a decade is wounded, perhaps fatally, by a rebellion from where she least expected it — within her own Christian Democrat party (CDU).
In the space of a few hours on Tuesday night, she saw her authority begin to slip away. The German press is already describing her as a “lame duck”. Wednesday’s headline in Bild, Germany’s biggest-selling newspaper, said it all: “Can Merkel still be chancellor?”
What happened?
Mrs Merkel’s MPs did not challenge her directly. German politics is not so brutal or so swift. Instead, they chose the annual election of the party’s parliamentary…
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