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Berlin (dpa -AfX) – change of power in Germany: The Union has clearly won the Bundestag election and should provide the next Chancellor with Friedrich Merz. According to the preliminary result, the right AfD comes in second place. This is followed by the SPD, which crashes to a historical low, as well as the Greens. The left is surprisingly strongly represented in the Bundestag. BSW and FDP, on the other hand, fail at the five percent hurdle and miss the move into parliament.
Now everything comes down to an alliance of the Union and the SPD, because a black and green coalition has no majority of the mandates. CDU boss Merz excluded merging with the AfD, which was classified as right-wing extremist AfD, which doubled to 20.8 percent (10.4 percent).
Merz: “Be able to act quickly”
The Union comes to 28.6 percent after the preliminary result (election 2021: 24.1 percent). CDU boss Merz now has the best chance of becoming the next chancellor according to Olaf Scholz (SPD) – but this remains in office. Merz has announced that he wanted to form a government by Easter at the latest. He wrote on X, Europe was waiting for Germany. “We have to quickly become able to act again.”
Scholz takes responsibility
With 16.4 percent (2021: 25.7 percent), the SPD achieved its worst result in a federal election. Scholz spoke of a bitter result and a defeat for which he also bears responsibility. In the case of coalition talks, he is not available as a negotiator.
In the evening, the SPD leadership proposed party leader Lars Klingbeil as the new chairman of the parliamentary group. The current parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich announced his withdrawal in a letter.
The Greens with candidate for chancellor Robert Habeck sack to 11.6 percent (2021: 14.7 percent). The left improve significantly to 8.8 percent (2021: 4.9 percent).
At the FDP, which flies out of parliament with only 4.3 percent (2021: 11.4 percent), there is now a change at the top: Party leader Christian Lindner wrote in the evening on X: “Now I vagger out of active politics out of.” The BSW of Sahra Wagenknecht fails very thinly at the five percent hurdle: According to the federal election management, the BSW has 4.972 percent.
The new Bundestag has 630 seats – 316 seats are necessary for a majority. According to the preliminary result, the Union reaches 208 seats in the new parliament. The SPD won 120 mandates. A government coalition of the two political groups is therefore possible. The results are not enough for a black and green coalition: the Greens only receive 85 MPs. The AfD significantly increases its faction with 152 seats. DIE LINKE provides 64 MPs. A mandate is once again the Südschleswig voters’ association, which is freed from the five percent hurdle as the party of the Danish and Frisian minority.
AfD wants to agree
AfD boss Alice Weidel spoke of a historical result. “We wanted to halve us, the opposite has occurred.” The AfD is ready to work with the Union. “Our hand will always be stretched out for a government participation to implement the will of the people.” At the same time, she announced: “We will hunt the others that they will make reasonable politics for our country.” The AfD in the east has its strongholds: the AfD has become the strongest force in all five East German countries.
According to ARD and ZDF, the turnout was 83.0 to 83.1 percent higher than 2021 (76.4 percent) and reached the highest value since reunification. 59.2 million people were called for voting, including a good 42 percent 60 years or older.
Bundestag becomes smaller – around 100 MPs less
The new Bundestag will be much slimmer due to a reform. The number of deputies was limited to 630 – more than 100 less than up to date. For this, the so-called overhang and equalization mandates are eliminated, which the parliament have often bloated up. Now candidates elected with first vote will only come to the Bundestag if their party also has enough second votes.
The election was preferred by seven months – there was only 1972, 1983 and 2005. The reason is that the traffic light coalition from the SPD, Greens and FDP had broken in November. After the Bundestag’s no, Scholz proposed the dissolution of Parliament to his question of trust – which Federal President Frank -Walter Steinmeier then ordered.
The election campaign recently circled mainly about migration
The short winter election campaign was recently characterized by the debate about a limitation of migration. Merz had demanded that asylum seekers to be rejected at the German borders – which would violate Greens and SPD from the perspective of Greens and the SPD. Merz had attracted sharp criticism after the Union had enforced an application for migration policy with votes from the AfD in the Bundestag ./kli/dp/zb