P
olls have closed in Germany and an initial projection of the results suggests that parties on the right have made big gains. The centre-right Christian Democrats (
CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (
CSU), are likely to be the largest force in parliament. According to surveys from Infratest dimap and Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, two pollsters, the
CDU/
CSU “Union” is forecast to win around 29% of the vote (see above). Their chancellor-candidate,
Friedrich Merz, will face the
tricky task of building Germany’s next government. The hard-right Alternative for Germany (
Af
D), led by Alice Weidel, has also done well and looks set to win a fifth of the vote, twice its share in 2021. But because all major parties rule out coalition talks with the
Af
D, they will have no viable path to governing.
The centre-left Social Democrats (
SPD) and their candidate and current chancellor, Olaf Scholz, are facing brutal losses. For the first time in the history of the Bundestag they could slide into third place. The Greens, one of its former coalition partners, have done slightly worse than in 2021.
The only winner on the left will be Die Linke (The Left), which looks to have improved its vote share after narrowly missing the hurdle in 2021, when it got into the Bundestag by securing three “direct mandates” (constituency seats), an exception to the 5% rule. The exit poll suggests The Left could win 9% of the vote. Its challenger, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (
BSW), a self-styled “left-conservative” splinter party founded just over a year ago by one of the Left’s former figureheads, and the pro-business Free Democrats, are both hovering just below the threshold for now—but that will only become clear with the final results.
What coalitions will be possible? The “traffic-light”, comprising the
SPD, Greens and
FDP, was Germany’s first three-party national government in over 60 years—and German voters do not want a repeat of that experience. But Mr Merz may struggle to strike a two-party agreement. The more parties make it into the Bundestag, the more likely it is that a three-party coalition, rather than a two-party one, will be needed for a majority.
As things stand only the
SPD looks as if it could win enough seats to make up a two-party coalition with the Union. In any event, post-election coalition talks are likely to take two months or longer. Whatever governing arrangement emerges will have to work hard to win Germans’ affections.