Germans have cast their votes on Sunday to mark the end of Angela Merkel’s time in office and start a new era in the country’s politics.
The elections grabbed great attention as these are the first elections that are being conducted without the candidature of Angela Merkel since 1990. it is to be remembered that both Germany got unified in that year.
Election officials said early Monday that a count of all 299 constituencies showed the Social Democrats won 25.9% of the vote, ahead of 24.1% for the Union bloc.
Preliminary results showed that the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) had won the largest share of the vote at 25.7%.
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In the second place, Chancellor Merkel’s center-right CDU-CSU bloc garnered 24.1%. This is the worst showing in its seven-decade history.
The Green party came third with 14.8%, and succeedingly Free Democrats with 11.5%, the far-right Alternative for Germany with 10.3% and finally the left party took 4.9%.
The SPD’s vice-chancellor cum chancellor candidate, also the finance minister Olaf Scholz expressed confidence in forming a coalition government at the earliest.
Armin Laschet from Merkel’s conservatives is also confident of forming the government with the help of the other party’s support.
Green chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock will play a big role in forming the new government as per the election results statistics.
Laschet, 60, and Scholz, 63, both said their goal is to have a new government in place before Christmas.
Scholz and Laschet will be looking to the Greens and the liberal, pro-business FDP party (11.5%) to make up the numbers needed for a parliamentary majority.
Germany is a country of 83 million people and Europe’s biggest economy.
Many political analysts fear that Germany will end up with political risk with a weak chancellor who will struggle to get ambitious fiscal reform at the EU level.