"Friedrich Merz is certainly poised to be the next chancellor of Germany, but the question remains about how he will formulate a stable governing coalition", says Sudha David-Wilp, a German politics expert from the German Marshall Fund of the United States, ahead of a snap election on 23 February. Under incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz's formerly three-way coalition, she adds, "we saw how it was very difficult to come to consensus among three parties with different political beliefs". IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES