BERLIN: Chancellor Ang­ela Merkel was making a last push on Sunday to forge a government, in a twin battle to save her political future and avert fresh elections that could destabilise Germany and Europe.

Elections in September left the veteran leader weakened and without a majority as some of her party’s voters turned to the far-right AfD, angered by her liberal refugee policy.

The disputed decision to let in more than a million asylum seekers since 2015 is also proving to be a stumbling block as she seeks an alliance with an unlikely group of parties spanning the left and right of the political spectrum.

Merkel’s conservative CDU party and its Bavarian allies the CSU are hoping to find common ground with the pro-business FDP and the Greens. They have given themselves until Sunday to clinch a deal.

If they do not, Germany woul­d have to hold new elections in 2018, as the centre-left Social Democratic Party has ruled out returning to a coalition with Merkel after suffering a hum­iliating loss at Sept­ember’s elections.

“Today is the last day of these exploratory talks. We must decide,” CSU chief Horst Seehofer said on Sunday.

Greens leader Cem Ozdemir also said that “so far we’ve been in extra time, but today it’s the penalty shoot-out.” “Europe is anything but out of the crisis,” Ozdemir added.

Party chiefs had initially set 6pm on Sunday as a deadline, but negotiators later began signalling that talks could run into the night.

Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2017