Germany’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is on course to form a grand coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) after winning Sunday’s federal election.
Preliminary results showed the CDU and its Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), with 28.6 per cent of the vote or 164 seats in the new Bundestag, up 4.4 points and 11 seats.
Meanwhile the SPD had its worst-ever result, losing nine points to finish on 16.4 per cent 120 seats, down 86 seats.
Together CDU/CSU and SPD have 328 seats, 12 more than a majority of 316, after two smaller parties failed to clear the five per cent hurdle to enter parliament.
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The liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), a junior party in the outgoing coalition, won just 4.3 per cent, prompting the resignation of leader and former finance minister Christian Lindner.
Anticipating his imminent departure from politics, Mr Lindner said on Sunday evening: “If my political career ends tomorrow, I depart with a feeling of gratitude.”
Meanwhile the left-conservative Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) took 4.97 per cent – around 14,000 votes short of entering parliament.
Ms Wagenknecht declined to appear as scheduled on television talk shows on Sunday evening, telling supporters instead: “If it’s not enough for us, then it is a defeat but it’s not the end of the BSW, we won’t do the others that favour.”
If the BSW had entered parliament, the CDU/CSU would have needed a further party to rule – most likely the Greens. It lost three points to 11.61 per cent or 85 seats in the new parliament.
The big winner of the evening was the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which doubled its support to 20.8 per cent or 152 seats in parliament.
In many eastern German regions it polled almost double that with 38 per cent in Saxony. The AfD scored strongly in many western German states, too, finishing in second place.
After months on the endangered list the Left Party (Linke) won 8.77 per cent of the vote, up nearly four points, to secure 64 seats – polling 19 per cent in some areas of Berlin.
The provisional results give CDU leader Friedrich Merz a basis for what he promised will be “sensible, speedy talks”.
“I know that it will not be easy but now we will talk to each other as quickly as possible,” said Mr Merz to supporters on Sunday night. “The world out there is not holding its breath for long-winded coalition talks.”
Senior coalition figures have admitted that the result was a disappointment for the party, which had hoped to finish over 30 per cent. Behind the scenes, some fear a weak start for Mr Merz in coalition talks with the SPD – his only viable political partner.
“We will have to make compromises, it would be good to have a government by Easter,” said Jens Spahn, a senior CDU politician and likely future minister, on morning television.
In the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD scored 37 per cent, its CDU minister president Reiner Haseloff said Mr Merz has a clear mandate to govern. He warned the country was divided politically like never before between East and West.
“Eastern voters saw violence on the streets every day, had an insecure feeling, and that is a failure of the state,” said Mr Haseloff. He was speaking in the state capital Magdeburg, which witnessed a Christmas market attack on December 20 that left six dead and hundreds injured. “After something like that,” he added, “you can’t expect there to be no consequences.”
Outgoing SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz described the result as “bitter” and signalled his departure from politics on Sunday evening, saying: “I will not go as an SPD representative into a CDU-lead government nor negotiations for it.”
AfD lead candidate Alice Weidel predicted a new Merz administration would be unstable and “crash and burn” quickly, triggering early elections.
She said her “hand was outstretched” for a CDU/CSU-AfD co-operation, an approach rejected by Mr Merz. An ARD public television poll showed that 69 per cent of respondents rejected AfD participation in government, with 28 per cent in favour.
Polls indicated there was no one dominant issue preoccupying voters: one in five cited public security concerns as well as social security issues, with 15 per cent of voters concerned with immigration and Germany’s weak economic performance.
Fine Gael leader and Tánaiste Simon Harris congratulated Friedrich Merz and the CDU on a victory which brings to 12 the number of continent leaders from their European People’s Party (EPP).
“A strong Europe needs a strong Germany,” said Harris. “We have many common interests and many common challenges.”
