Exit polls indicate CDU/CSU set to be largest party but success of Alternative für Deutschland likely to complicate formation of a government

Summary

Germany’s conservative CDU/CSU, led by Friedrich Merz, won around 29% of the vote in the snap general election, making Merz the frontrunner to form a ruling coalition.

The far-right AfD surged to 20%, nearly doubling its 2021 result, but remains politically isolated as major parties refuse to cooperate with it.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats suffered their worst result since WWII, while his coalition partners, the Greens and FDP, also lost support.

Merz faces challenges forming a government, addressing economic woes, and countering the AfD’s growing influence.

  • @stetech
    1•6 hours ago

    Well said. Just a nitpick, of the two bigger parties (ignoring anything <3% here) which didn’t succeed in entering parliament, one is starkly not leftist (FDP, free democrats, i.e. “free market”), and the other is arguably financially left, but socially right (BSW, alliance Sahra Wagenknecht, a very young party that split off from the Left (the leftist party which made it into Bundestag) due to internal differences.