Conservatives win German election as far-right come second with record result
The Conservatives have claimed victory in the German election but far-right AFD celebrated record results, as ITV News Europe Editor James Mates reports
Friedrich Merz's Conservatives have won Germany's national election, while the far-right surged to second place.
The provisional results indicate that the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is heading for the strongest showing for a far-right party since the Second World War.
Meanwhile, current Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats are on track for their worst post-war result in a national parliamentary election.
The polls, issued right after the last polling stations closed, put support for Merz's Union bloc at 28.5-29% and Alternative for Germany (AfD) at 19.5-20%, roughly double its result from 2021.
That result would leave the Christian Democrat Union party short of an outright majority, but with the possibility of a coalition with the Social Democrats, after smaller parties failed to make the electoral threshold.
Merz had already ruled out the possibility of a coalition with AfD, and said on election night that he hopes to form a government by Easter at the latest. Olaf Scholz will remain Chancellor until a new coalition is formed.
“I am aware of the responsibility,” Merz said on Sunday night. "I am also aware of the scale of the task that now lies ahead of us. I approach it with the utmost respect, and I know that it will not be easy.”
“The world out there isn't waiting for us, and it isn't waiting for long-drawn-out coalition talks and negotiations,” he told cheering supporters. “We must now become capable of acting quickly again."
"One thing is clear: the Union has won the election," Carsten Linnemann, the general secretary of Merz's Christian Democratic Union party. "The new chancellor will be called Friedrich Merz."
US President Donald Trump congratulated Merz, calling the result a "great day for Germany".
AfD's candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, said: "We have become the second strongest force."
She said that her party is “open for coalition negotiations” with Merz’s party, and that “otherwise, no change of policy is possible in Germany.”
The party was jubilant on Sunday night, with leaders vowing to become the country's main party in the next election as its appeal expands.
The anti-immigrant, far-right party has established itself as a significant political force in the 12 years since it was founded, but it hasn't yet been part of any government.
The election took place seven months earlier than originally planned after Scholz’s unpopular coalition collapsed in November, three years into a term that was increasingly marred by in-fighting.
The election was dominated by worries about the years-long stagnation of Europe's biggest economy and pressures to curb immigration.
It also took place against a background of growing uncertainty over the future of Ukraine and Europe's alliance with the United States.
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