Europe's increasingly dominant power Germany is keeping the Christian Democrats of Angela Merkel in power, with an unexpectedly big victory in an election that was supposed to be close. Final results are not yet in (updates here), and it is unclear whether the CDU will obtain an absolute majority of seats, or if it will be forced to enter a coalition.  Either way, the voters' endorsement is historic: Photo credit Here is an electoral map, revealing that the big cities voted for the socialist SPD, but most of the country went for the CDU: credit There are two conservative small parties that are very close to the 5% of votes minimum necessary to be represented in parliament. The pro-business FPD party, which was Merkel's coalition partner previously, is currently at 4.8%, which would prevent it from representation in parliament, and thus unavailable to form a collation. The new Alternativ für Detuschland (AfD), an anti-conservative party apparently siphoned off support...(Read Full Post)