"Were he to return, then the expectation is that he's managed to secure a consensus of sorts,at least to get the government formed and let it get on with its daily business."
VOA: standard.2009.09.11
The ongoing scandals are hurting the SPD's already-troubled coalition with the Greens, who are angry that the government is conceding too much to the opposition Christian Democrats to getaconsensus over immigration.
If they can't getaconsensus for him, they still believe they could have gotten a rough majority for him if it had come to an up-or-down vote, so they're going to go ahead.