THE morning after Germany’s federal election, Angela Merkel, the
chancellor, stood in front of her wardrobe. “Can’t do red, can’t
do bright green, blue was yesterday. What do you do? So I chose
something very neutral. And please do view it that way.” The
anecdote, as she told it later that day, was vintage Merkel. The
German public got the joke and understood that the hour of her
triumph was the wrong time to put pressure on the losing
opposition parties, which have the colours red and green. For
Mrs Merkel now depends on either red or green to form a new
government.  This need shows what a paradoxical victory she won
on September 22nd. Her own “black” camp, the centre-right
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party
(the CSU), jointly achieved its best result since reunification,
with 41.5% of votes. This translates into 311 seats out of 630
in the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament. That is just
five short of an absolute majority, which only one chancellor of
the Federal Republic,