FDP has nothing to be obedient about, CDU has almost as few principles as they do
Not to mention that CDU seem to be at war with themselves anyhow. Not all of them seem to be happy with Merkel either as far as I can tell
No, but it does mean less votes for everyone else except FDP
They pull that and they'll probably get kicked out of parliament next election, unless they get everything they want, which won't happen because Greens
All the anti-AfD shilling only makes them stronger
Merkel didn't have much of choice since everyone ruled out governing with AfD. She's still nominally conservative and FDP is the only other nominally conservative party apart from AfD, but she still needed someone else for a majority.
That's why I think we'll start to see Die Linke enter the picture should the re-elections end up the same
I've heard of no such problems apart from Petry leaving, which sounds like a good thing for the party anyway