Merkel dented by presidential vote
Round 2
After a second round of voting Germany still does not have a president.
It is a further wound to the reputation of the Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. Her
candidate Christian Wulff gained an extra 15 votes, but not enough to gain
an absolute majority.
The opposition candidate, Joachim Gauck, actually saw his vote slightly decline in the second round.
What this means is that all the behind-the-scenes arm-twisting has not been able to get the votes in for Wulff. The embarrassment for Angela Merkel lies is the fact that if all the members of her coalition had voted for Wulff he would have been elected.
There will be a break and then a third round of voting. In the final round, whoever gets a simple majority will be president. The expectation has to be that Mr Wulff, the political insider from the centre-right ,will win. But the MPs and the representatives have broken for an hour, and the Reichstag has become a place of intrigue and a numbers game.
All of this eats away at Angela Merkel's credibility after a period where she has been judged to have made mistakes and lost her sureness of touch.
Round 1 (1330 BST)
Angela Merkel's candidate failed to get an overall majority. Christian Wulff needed 50% of the votes of German MP's and regional representatives to become President. He got less than that.
What is interesting is that it seems that between 30 and 40 people from Chancellor Merkel's camp voted for the opposition candidate Joachim Gauck.
There will now be a second round but this result will be seen as a setback for Angela Merkel and a dent to her authority.
I'm 
Comments
or to comment.