Friedrich Merz is on track to become Germany’s next chancellor after his center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) party took roughly 30% of the vote in landmark German elections on Sunday, according to two early exit polls.
In spite of CDU’s lead the country’s political future looks far from certain due to a surge in support for the the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party which is set to come in second with a record 19.5-20% of the vote.
The center-left Social Democrats (SDP) have taken 16% of the vote, in what is potentially its worst result ever; followed by the Greens with 13.3%, and then the Left party with 8.6%, the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) with 4.9%, left-wing populist BSW party with 4.7% and others with 3.9%.
The elections were called following the collapse last year of the coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is leader of the SDP.
Merz will need to form a coalition with at least one other party in order to secure a majority in the German parliament.
He has said his preferred partner is SDP but it remains to be seen whether the party will garner enough of the vote for such an alliance to ensure a majority.
AfD, in the meantime, has already declared that its performance in the polls cannot be ignored.
Speaking shortly after the first exit polls were released at about 6pm local time, AfD co-chairman Tino Chrupalla said the party’s performance gave it a “mandate to bring about political change”.
“We have received the confidence of the voters and that should be something everybody else accepts as well,” he said.
Merz, however, has vowed that he will not form a coalition with the AfD.
AfD leader Alice Weidel warned Merz on Sunday evening that he ignored her party’s election results at his peril.
“If the CDU betrays its manifesto and cooperates with the left, then I can assure you that the next election will be quicker than is anticipated and we will overtake the CDU as the largest party,’ she told supporters.
As his victory emerged in the exit polls, Merz told supporters that his priority was to form a coalition as quickly possible.
“The outside world is not going to wait for us,” he said. “Now we’re going to speak to each other and as soon as possible, we need to get a viable government together in Germany, a government capable of working based on the majority.”
