German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc has won the Bundestag elections, scoring 33% of the vote, Federal Returning Officer Dieter Sarreither said, citing the official preliminary results of the voting.
According to the data published by the Federal Election Commission, CDU/CSU bloc will receive 246 out of the 709 seats in the parliament.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) will get 153 seats, which is 40 less than after the 2013 elections. The Alternative for Germany party will for the first time enter the Bundestag, receiving 94 seats. The Free Democratic Party will have 80 seats, the Green Party will get 67 seats, while the Left Party will receive 69.
According to the Federal Election Commission, the turnout was 76.2% which is 4.7% more compared to the 2013 elections.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) has garnered 20.5% (its worst-ever result). The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) received 12.6% of the vote. It is followed by the Free Democratic Party (10.7%), the Left Party (9.2%) and the Green Party (8.9%).
After the results of exit polls were announced, the SPD said it planned to go into opposition, which leaves only one option for forming a ruling coalition consisting of the CDU/CSU bloc, the Free Democratic Party and the Green Party (the so-called Jamaica coalition). However, German experts say that such a government may be unstable due to contradictions over a number of key issues.
“We expected a better result, that is clear,” Merkel said Sunday night. “The good thing is that we will definitely lead the next government.”
She said that she would listen to those who voted for the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, and work to win them back “by solving problems, by taking up their worries, partly also their fears, but above all by good politics.”
After exit polls showed that the Alternative for Germany party was third, one of its leaders Alexander Gauland said he was beginning "a hunt" for Merkel’s party. The chancellor, in turn, vowed to analyze the situation to win back the voters who had preferred to support the far-right instead of the CDU/CSU.
Electoral arithmetic in 2013 forced Angela Merkel into a grand coalition with the second-biggest party, the SPD social democrats. This time she may have one other option, a 'Jamaican flag coalition' of the CDU (black), centre-right liberals the FDP (yellow), and the Greens.
Green Party leader Katrin Goring-Eckardt warned that talks to form a new so-called Jamaica coalition - could be difficult. "We are not easy partners," she said.
Winfried Kretschmann, leader of the Greens, said that the possibility of a coalition with the CDU is not up to him. "It is up to the old and new chancellor if we are offered talks we will take them seriously".
SPD's Martin Schulz conceded defeat in the German state elections with an admission that the country's open-door immigration possibly had divided the nation and led to the success of the AfD party.
