Projections say CDU/CSU leads with 29% – DW – 02/23/2025

The leader of Germany’s businesses-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) Christian Lindner admitted that his party was “paying a high price” for bringing down Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government.

Lindner, who served as Scholz finance minister until he was fired in a row over the 2025 budget, said the party “took the full political risk” that its maneuvers could lead to the government’s collapse, but insisted to party supporters in Berlin that it was “the right decision for Germany.”

The FDP fell out with partners the Social Democrats and Germany’s Green Party in November 2024, leading to the fall of Scholz’s coalition.

It remains unclear whether the FDP will clear the 5% threshold needed to claim seats in the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany’s parliament. Projections based on initial results put the party at 4.9%.

Lindner later told a post-election TV discussion that he would leave politics if his party did not cross the threshold.

“If the FDP leaves the Bundestag, it is quite clear that I will also leave politics,” said Lindner. “If my political career ends tomorrow, I will leave with only one feeling: gratitude.”

All parties of the current government coalition, the SPD, Greens and FDP, suffered losses at the ballot box, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party seeing a punishingly bad result and dropping to around 16% from 25.7% in 2021.

According to exit polls from German broadcaster ARD, 82% of German voters were dissatisfied with the current government coalition, with just 17% saying they were satisfied. Majorities of voters from all parties said they were dissatisfied with the government, but Green voters gave the coalition its highest marks, with 45% of its voters saying their were satisfied.

Sunday’s snap election was brought about by the breakdown of the coalition itself.

Some 72% of German voters were dissatisfied with Scholz, with only 26% giving him a high approval.

Here are the latest projections of German election results, updated in real time.

DW has prepared  an overview of Sunday’s results showing what percentage of the vote each party claimed as well as gains and losses as compared to the 2021 election, statistics by chancellor candidate, and other key info.

CDU leader Friedrich Merz has been discussing his preferred solutions for the next ruling coalition on German public broadcaster ARD.

“We have won this and we’ve won it clearly,” he said. “I will now attempt to form a government which represents the entire republic and which will tackle the country’s problems.”

“What that government will look like, we don’t yet know. But it’s not a secret that would prefer one coalition partner rather than two. And a coalition with the AfD isn’t up for debate. Their supporters knew that from the start and still voted for them.”

As it stands (and the final result could still differ slightly from the initial exit poll), the CDU could not mathematically form a two-party coalition without the AfD. Even a so-called Grand Coalition with the SPD would only have 45% of the seats in parliament.

Merz could invite the Greens to give them a comfortable majority, but that would be an unpopular move among conservatives. Many would perhaps prefer to invite the Free Democrats (FDP) as a junior partner, providing the business-friendly party overcomes the minimum 5% hurdle.

First-time German voters, including young voters, appear to have voted overwhelmingly for parties on the far-left and far-right.

According to exit polls, 25% of voters aged 18-24 voted for the far-left Die Linke (The Left), a figure which rises to 27% among first-time voters, while 21% voted for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

A further 6% appear to have voted for the new left-wing populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which formed out of the Left Party last year.

In total, that suggests that over half of young voters have turned their backs on Germany’s traditional, centrist parties, the CDU (13%), SPD (12%) and Greens (11%).

Watch as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) concedes defeat in Sunday’s parliamentary election.

Watch as the conservative CDU/CSU candidate for chancellor Friedrich Merz declares his alliance to be the winner of Sunday’s parliamentary election in Germany.

It seems to be a bitter night for the centrist parties, as none of them can really be happy, DW correspondent Rosalia Romaniec reported from CDU headquarters.

The AfD has won over one in five voters, achieving a historic result, enough to be a strong opposition to any government.

AfD leader Alice Weidel echoed the words of former party leader Alexander Gauland, saying “we will hunt down the others so that they make sensible policies for our country.”

An unclear coalition forecast makes election night all the more difficult. Depending on the final result, the next government could even consist of four parties: CDU, CSU, SPD and FDP or Greens.

On election night, it certainly does not look like there will be political stability in Germany in troubled times. 

On the first floor of the Social Democrat (SPD) party’s headquarters, the Willy Brandt House in Berlin, I meet German Development Minister Svenja Schulze. She seems upset. The result has shocked many here.

“This goes deeper than just changing heads,” Schulze tells DW, when asked whether party leaders Lars Klingbeil and Saskia Esken will now have to step down.

“We have to change something programmatically,” she said, adding that the SPD must convey unity.

For the center-left party, the next important election is just a week away: the Hamburg state election next Sunday.

Green Party lead candidate Robert Habeck has defended his party’s projected 13% of the vote as “respectable,” reasoning that the Greens “haven’t collapsed” like the other coalition parties, the SPD and the FDP.

But he blamed the Greens’ underwhelming result out on the behavior of the CDU’s Friedrich Merz, which he said had “boosted the extremes.”

Habeck, who has served as vice-chancellor since 2021, was referring to Merz’s controversial attempt to pass a motion through parliament with the help of the far-right AfD which led to some calls on the left and center-left for parties to refuse to work with the CDU.

“I couldn’t promise that,” said Habeck. “I’ve always said we want to take responsibility, so that path wasn’t open to us. And we’ve paid the price for that.”

Merz’s conservative camp, particularly the Bavarian Premier Markus Söder, have ruled out working with the Green Party, but Habeck insisted he is available for talks – provided Merz alters his behavior.

On the eve of the election, Merz had given a rather bad-tempered speech to supporters in which he shouted that there was no more room for “left wing politics” or “Green policies,” which Habeck thought was inappropriate.

“Merz now has the mandate to govern and I hope he realizes what responsibility he has,” he told Tagesschau. “The center has been weakened and Merz needs to ask himself if he’s contributed to that. He needs to start acting like a Chancellor, not a provincial campaigner.”

The claim: Users on social media are saying that the election result in Germany is being manipulated because some ballot boxes don’t have locks on them. This user on X wrote, “If you want to know why the same people are always in power in Germany. Ballot box in constituency 84, district 10, polling station 324. According to the election board, the Federal Returning Officer does not consider it necessary to seal the ballot boxes.” Similar claims were made by other users, like here, “This would allow them to be opened and all ballot papers could be replaced by others, as the number of voters cast is recorded.”

The facts: According to the German Federal Election Code section 51, says the box “must be lockable.” However, it does not specify that it needs to be locked. The Federal Returning Officer also published similar statements on a website on disinformation about the German parliamentary elections.

According to a fact check published by the AFP, a spokeswoman for the Federal Returning Officer explained on the phone: “How it is closed is not specified. There does not have to be a lock on it or a seal.”

The big winner in terms of voter share was the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which completed the latest vote with a 9.3% jump in support on Sunday.

The conservative CDU /CSU alliance also increased its support by 4.8% compared to 2021. The ultra-leftwing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) might stay below the 5% hurdle needed to enter the parliament, but — at least on paper — its growth is impressive, as it only formed out of the socialist Left Party a year ago.

The center-left Social Democrats(SPD) was the biggest loser. The party’s support fell by 9.6% compared with the 2021 election.

Despite negativity recently around the cost of the energy transition, support for Germany’s Green Party only fell by 1.5%.

Green Party chancellor candidate Robert Habeck, the country’s outgoing vice chancellor and economy minister, voiced disappointment with the results of Sunday’s vote when speaking with DW on Sunday evening.

“I wanted more, we dreamed of more. But after the CDU voted with AfD on migration legislation in the Bundestag, many of our supporters told us: ‘you can’t govern with them.”  

Habeck congratulated Friedrich Merz on his election victory, though the mood among the Green base would seem to rule out any possibility of staying in government as most members refuse to support Merz with help from the party. 

The pro-environment Green Party is unlikely to remain in the government, despite only a slight drop from 14.7% in 2021. Estimates after the latest election put them at 13.5% of the vote.

“This result is an expression of a shift in society,” Green lawmaker Felix Banaszak told Tagesschau, trying to emphasize the positives.

“Europe is facing a difficult period,” he said. “With [Donald] Trump in the US, Germany and Europe are going to have to step up. And this result shows that, even though we’ve come out of an extremely difficult coalition, there’s still a need in society for progressive, ecological, global, tolerant politics.”

The CDU have frequently ruled out inviting the Greens to enter a coalition with them, but Banaszak is trying to remain optimistic.

“We’ve always said we’re still prepared to take on responsibility to push our topics, even in the next government. So, let’s see, it’s too early to say what will be mathematically possible and what not, but our willingness to take responsibility remains.”