testing these elections very difficult so no surprise then that on the night of that defeat of the elections then social democrat leader martin shultz the former head of the european parliament came forward and said never again he got a lot of cheers for that that's certainly how the party base felt that's really the heart of the party's base saying they don't want this bruising relationship with the conservatives particularly. now they're being asked after a brief phase of divorce say to once again join this political marriage of convenience is almost a wrong word almost a forced marriage to stabilize not just the country which is the greater picture of responsibility that the social democrats frame themselves within but potentially also to stabilize the own party with under the analysis the new leading figures set to replace martin salts after this phase that we're seeing right now at the next party conference saying in pledging actually to the party base that yes the renewal

process would be possible at the same time as being in the so-called grand coalition while the social democrat party basically failed to see anything ground for the social democrats in this so if anything they're doing this as a sense of responsibility or a fear of what the unknown would bring to the social democrats potentially even worse figures than we're seeing in the polling right now they got twenty point five percent in those past elections already a long fall down but the polling that we've seen since it was all the way down to sixteen percent i mean let's just remind ourselves they would be a power even below the center for germany the far right party and parliament for the first time and they would become yet another victim of increased fragmentation now under the analysis of parliamentary party leader she is expected to fix it she's the person everybody's putting their hopes on right now but she also has to be very careful because. her potential predecessor i mean she's not elected into

that position of party leader yet but martin sauls got one hundred percent from his own party that was a long fast full within the space of twelve months to then actually have to resign over these poor election results. the woman who put her name who signed her name under this coalition agreement pledging that she can yes renew this party put it back on its feet and at the same time fight off effectively. the german chancellor claiming too many policies and she says that with this minimum wage in germany effectively having been her political baby as minister to the christian democrats partially claim the rewards for that so a very difficult marriage if it comes together if it doesn't of course germany would see itself in a phase of political free for i don't like to use the word crisis because we saw that the caretaker government actually worked rather well germany is ticking over

but it certainly would be a very very new scenario here that would take some time and a lot of negotiation for everybody not just to get used to but to to take decisions and it would unleash political dynamics that i frankly wouldn't speculate on that could potentially also see a very fast change of sentiment even within the christian democrats and their attitude towards their leader who no longer is perceived as teflon uncle america who has seen a lot of criticism in those past months and more recently for handing over the finance ministry as a trophy to the social democrats the question is was that trophy enough to convince the party base to vote with their heads and with their hearts are certainly hoping to find out finally some confirmed results michelle a very soon simon and you're just picking up on what michelle is that. she is the parliamentary leader of the social democrats can she fix it as michelle said that's what you think tasked with doing. i think she has

a very combative personality you seen that in little of her speeches in the last few weeks where she gets a real firebrand and she was once known as a really really tough leftwing us in a way that is an irony that she's here at the moment you know battling for this centrist coalition with angle of medical and i think she will do. to make sure that the s.p. digs message comes through more clearly in a. coalition that it has done in the past i would just like just coming back to the drama of the moment. that you know i wondering if the s.p.d. leadership here trying to avoid one of those sort of style if i can mention the i think it was well if they don't they certainly don't want to come out and look as if they you know they've been wrong all but they even if it's it goes against them they don't know what to do next because as we're saying it everyone's

a bit worried about instability and political freefall this may have made should so you know this is long delay this moments of spades is making me think they're just double and triple checking although we out hearing from various sources now that. have voted in favor of entering the coalition government with chancellor merkel and you know we haven't talked a whole lot yet about the chancellor but how weakened has she been in this entire process that we've been talking about yeah i think she's been quite weak and this was a vote she could not control we have seen merkel who are being criticized within their own party and especially from the more conservative flank we have seen yet spawn before already the item her biggest critic one of her biggest critics rather in the monarchy. critics and who wants to have a more conservative chorus who wants to have to german culture more. you know what

i was criticizing integration and migration for this for this frank american is a rather left wing politician and now we're going to see if the reports are true they were being challenged by a very confident. the populous party on the right and his party were trying to yeah don't try to do to get these conservative flank the draw american away more to the right and that's that's a potential conflict for your for this new coalition if the coalition. go america has played it rather cleverly in regard to against. some after stopping there because it looks like we are about to get this announcement let's go right to listen to what the results are. not here comes in before. guns guns how it's.

going to really but i think politics. and i have to say that i believe that everyone involved in organizing this rank and file members vote very important i mean we had a great deal of work and you have incredibly professional everybody involved so thank you very much for all of the weight behind the scenes. look to me to be out and i also want to express my gratitude over one hundred twenty volunteers who have come here from all across germany guns volunteered to spend the entire night counting votes and. seeing everything so i'm very very proud that we could have had far more volunteers. thank you very much for those who would have come and for those who did come.

duncan we shall fight in colleague in an on call leading them and that's also what they want to see you and all of the members of the adventurous and felt counting committee you know carried out random it shakes up to scrutiny when they were up to the questions about any of the votes so that the chance of each vote was counted very carefully was a business examined very carefully so that we have the exact results here and i want to thank our public naturalists santa and of course in the run up to this and all through the night was here carrying out random checks ensuring that we had a year for sure and result confirmed by public no trade and i also want to thank all of our colleagues in the by the german postal service and the police and all of the service people because all sorts of people were involved in

ensuring that this post went smoothly. and now the embassy the motes. the number of people entitled to vote work four hundred sixty three thousand seven hundred twenty three and members of the social democratic party that's how many and all this number contains two thousand three hundred five members who are currently living abroad for starters why they were unable to take part in the postal vote expect rather have to much of a certified electronic voting option number of votes cast in total with the three hundred and eighty seven three hundred seventy one vote and thousand and one fourteen thousand nine hundred and forty three of these votes. the stuck in ballot

. in there are various reasons for lock this and usually for more reasons but they meant that we couldn't count these votes as ballot which meant that at the end i three hundred style sixty three thousand four hundred and ninety four vote were valid and cast which is a seventy eight point three percent level of participation of the rank and file members of the s.p.d. . these yes i know who are the behind and this is a higher percentage than we had four years ago british the valid votes cast. i know five hundred and sixty one votes that were found to be invalidated up to give an inch to mn. as a result of the valid meet vote cast votes in favor of working on the two hundred

victims and their deaths you nine thousand six hundred and four votes of those against one hundred twenty three thousand three hundred and twenty nine dollars of the s.p.d. are not suitable for which means sixty six point zero two percent of vote cast went very very patient and almost thirty three point nine eight percent of the vote this cast were against you and miss having to the honor to represent this force its in the result to you is means my job's done and i'm now past the floor mind that actually i'm using head yesterday doing the members of the as he did not have approved dealey plaza is put forward by the s.p.d. leadership so now you have clarity that the s.p.d. will indeed enter into the new government to tie up this initial democratic awful of their party's struggle to with this decision we were very open and we were very transparent difficult yet and we debated at length the results. coalition agreement

is really exciting and it's needed as a party to enter into it to the government and to get our country to unstick going in the right direction and oil gives us the strength for the process of renewal that we are working on look at the can with our party even in the party leadership meeting that we had this may count. i want to thank all of the volunteers and gun school so i just was really hard words of two and i was very very proud on because everything that was done here actually was the pits of your myth that the great precision with which this vote was carried out keep having to get off or you can take a couple of questions mr schultz prepared to answer a few secrets from on business or just the first of all that i'm surprised that there's no response here and available to him to house and you did your instructor said everyone you hear of or all of the s.p.d. members to him by folks who were for a no from clapping on don't rush which i'm also surprised that your interpretation

doesn't party has grown closer together because two thirds to one thirty three share that shows quite clearly doesn't it that there are very different lines in the social democrats in some more left not how do you see a child mccotter the social democratic policy is i am a critic party here one that by that you can be proud of its long heritage which is one of the debating issues and i think it's normal in debates that you don't all necessarily agree that all you can get find a common way forward and that's exactly what we're done here and i believe that this is an extremely important democratic process for our country and i believe we now have a new unity in the party and we need this moving forward to mystify got the next question. and here's mr hanson here in the second row. clark yes but even mr shards used and that yesterday will be entering into the

government can you tell us a bit about the mystery remains. the public's going to be what gets the titles when you're dealing with announcer that their story will enter into the government and now we have a mandate to put together the cabinet we will take the time that we need to do this over the course of the week what's clear in the stories that we're not of six all ministers know these three women and three men you're taking these persons and some are still in there but we continue in that position some of the new four times in this kind of controversy missed shots have you in front of the chancellor about this or was she just be watching television even find out that way and how well you're going to deal with those who were against this many young people in your party what's very very hard and where you joined the party hoping for a different result to the people in this country i have informed the german president and the german chancellor about the results of the votes we've got from some very pleased that over thirty thousand members who have joined this party in

the last year and it's a very good reason to get involved actively in a debate to want to vote under debate like this our experience is that many of them joined the times you a few years ago are still with us over ninety percent have stayed with us and this is why i'm firmly convinced that all of our new party members and every one of the part of who i meet i wanted to get involved in my state wanted to have their voice heard will contribute actually to making the social democratic party a strong party needs to be thank you to everyone. just. and if you're just there watching us you have been watching. rather first of all he is the head of the internal election commission has confirmed that the social democrat party members have indeed voted in favor of entering another coalition government with the chancellor merkel's conservatives this was a huge moment the final hurdle really that we've been waiting for for germany to

get its next government to both of you so we have our political correspondent and young and journalist your grandson with us here in studio you've been watching this we heard the acting head of the party say this really was hard work he was proud of the party and he said this is the strength that we need to get our country now moving in the right direction we are waiting i think me our. political editor michelle i don't know if you can hear us michelle i know that you have been listening in there but if you can give us an idea of what the mood is like there now just after these results were released. really the real surprise here is first of all that it was stronger than many people had anticipated and that there really was no reaction in the room i mean the reason you didn't hear anything is not because our sound was not but frankly it was there was completely no reaction in this room to that result as if he is just. very matter of fact kind of issue and not really so that the whole country has been waiting for basically

whether there will be a government anytime soon which would then be a so-called grand coalition whether the country would be left in political turmoil well that is now just been a verses and the reaction was complete silence in the room even from those people who've been counting those results although you know one could argue they they were up all night so they certainly must be very tired but there really was no. sense of surprise or excitement relief. so why is it that there was no we actually there was so much riding on on the line here. well you heard it i mean that was also the first question to all of sorts the interim head of the party until a new leader.