MERKEL WINS: CAN KICK SOCIALISTS OUT OF GOVERNMENT

BBC:

Chancellor Angela Merkel has been returned to power in Germany, exit polls suggest, after her conservative bloc won 33.5% of the vote.

Mrs Merkel's CDU/CSU may have enough seats to ditch her Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners and form a centre-right alliance with the FDP.

She has said that the new alliance will get Europe's biggest economy out of its deepest crisis since World War II.

SPD leader Frank Walter Steinmeier admitted a "bitter defeat".

... The SPD have shared power with Mrs Merkel's bloc in an awkward grand coalition since the last elections in 2005.

Preliminary results are expected in the next few hours.

An exit poll for ZDF television gave the Social Democrats (SPD) 23.5% and the Free Democrats (FDP), Mrs Merkel's preferred partners, 14.5%.

This would give the centre-right alliance a narrow majority over the SPD and the two other major parties, the Greens and the Left, both of which increased their share of the vote.

"A black-yellow coalition looks set, we have reached our goal," said CDU general secretary Volker Kauder, quoted by AFP news agency.

ZDF TV EXIT POLL FIGURES

• CDU/CSU: 33.5%
• SPD: 23.5%
• FDP: 14.5%
• Left party: 13%
• Green party: 10%

AWESOME! KICK THE COMMIES OUT!

WILL BE DOING THE SAME IN 2010 AND 2012!

UPDATE: 2 HOURS LATER AND THE NYTIMES "TUNES IN."