In a close battle, the center-left Social Democrats received the most votes in Germany’s national election, defeating departing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Union group. PM Merkel, who has led the country since 2005, had already indicated her intention to resign after the election, making the vote a watershed moment in the history of Europe’s largest economy. Early Monday, election officials declared that the Social Democrats (SPD) had received 25.9% of the vote, compared to 24.1 percent for the Union group, based on a total of all 299 constituencies.
The two parties have already indicated that they are open to discussing forming a three-way administration with one of their two larger competitors.
With 10.3 percent of the vote, the far-right Alternative for Germany placed in fourth, while the Left party received 4.9 percent of votes. Officials predicted that the Danish minority party SSW would win a seat in parliament for the first time since 1949. It could take months to form a new coalition, and it will almost certainly include the Greens.
After Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Gerhard Schroeder, Mr Scholz, 63, would be the fourth postwar SPD chancellor. He is a former mayor of Hamburg and is now the Finance Minister in Angela Merkel’s government.