9h ago

Conservatives poised to win German election but far-right AfD doubles support

www.theguardian.com Conservatives poised to win German election but far-right AfD doubles support

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.

10 comments

Nazis won’t be part of the government after this result.
The conservatives have stated before the election that they won’t form a coalition with the far right AfD, the green party or the left party. But with this result, they have a majority with the social democrats alone.
This will be a stable, centrist, boring government, typically German. Too little progress, but no catastrophe, and no threat to EU democracy, nor to international obligations or support for Ukraine. Neither party are Putin bootlickers either.
In the opposition, the greens and the left combined have more seats than the AfD.
And 84% turnout is the highest since 1987!!!
- I agree, but the fear is that a government which doesn't improve things at a rate greater than the rate at which things get worse for the bottom half will result in a greater swing towards populism.
- I disagree with that assertion.
  While not in power, the conservatives have shifted their position to what was considered to be the far right only a few years ago. For example, one of their main messages during their campaign was to close Germany‘s borders for refugees, a position that was only supported by the far-right AfD beforehand (and which is violating EU law).
  Their main target during the lead-up to this election wasn‘t the far-right, it was the green and left-wing parties. They ranted against renewable energy, taxes on gas, the legalization of Cannabis and such, instead of fighting against the rising far-right extremists.
  Friedrich Merz, the conservative’s candidate and likely future chancellor, is an opportunist. If he expects to win something from the talking points of the right-wing extremists, he has absolutely no issues embracing them. He’s very, very different from Angela Merkel.
  He already voted with the AfD against the other democratic parties a few weeks ago, which he explicitly ruled out only two months earlier. I have no reason to believe him, if he says he won‘t cooperate with them again.
- Let's hope Germans can stop the march of Nazis. This side of Atlantic is just about lost.
- Yep, it's not a perfect result (that would've been AfD polling 0%) but its one that will definitely exclude the far-right and I suspect lead to a Europe united in their defence of Ukraine.

Edit at the top: turns out, any party that is below 5% doesn't make it into the Bundestag, so the multiple leftist parties that fell below that 5% were waisted when it comes to getting seats. The country though still has the majority left leaning vote percentage wise. I'm only keeping the original comment for posterity, some of it is wrong as has been pointed out by the Germans in the thread.
Interestingly, if all the center-left and the leftists parties all added up their percentages of the vote, they get roughly 51.2% of the vote. Now I'm not super knowledgeable on how that affects their Bundestag, but if that means that said 51.2 percent have a majority of seats, they could join together to make a coalition government and keep the far right out of power.
Course that won't happen because us leftists love infighting and refusing to compromise with our fellow leftists for the greater good while the right easily falls in line.
Also interestingly, this could mean that the far right/conservative party is going to be put into power in Germany winning the minority of the vote overall for the second time that I know of. And we all know what happened last time.
Edit: And again, this is all preliminary so it could change and as another commenter mentioned the AfD is a pariah and is still unlikely to be a part of the government due to the conservatives saying they won't be. But who knows, people lie.
- Bundestag. Only the building is called Reichstag, but we don't have a Reich anymore. And what matters is the number of seats. Since only parties above 5% make it in, Left parties do not have a majority.
  
  Didn't know that, I'll edit the comment, thanks for the info!
  Edit that I hope I made in time for you to see: does that mean that the parties that are under 5% are waisted votes? So does the percentage of vote total show that the country is majority left leaning but because so many voters voted for parties that didn't break 5 those voters won't be represented and the seats that would have gone to leftist parties if they had broken 5 will go to the center left party who did? Basically, is voting for parties who don't break 5 like Americans voting for Third parties, completely pointless?

They haven't won anything. Our election results are just starting to come in.

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