Merkel facing dissent even from own ranks

Voices dissenting from Angela Merkel's opinion following Sunday's early elections in Germany that "We (CDU/CSU) are the strongest parliamentary group...Voters have given the task of forming a government to us" are beginning to rise even from Merkel's own side. An MP from the CDU's "sibling party" CSU, Peter Gauweiler, has called for a grand coalition of CDU/CSU and PM Schroeder's own SPD Party, with Gerhard Schroeder at the head as prime minister. Underlining that Germany was engulfed in a "political crisis," MP Gauweiler noted that the only way to overcome the crisis was with a "grand coalition" of CDU/CSU and SPD. With insistence from Schroeder's SPD Party that "unless the prime minister is from us, there will be no 'grand coalition'," Germany is facing the prospect of a government headed up by the party which did not come in with the majority of votes. Â