Merz’s CDU wins German elections

Brussels – Everything as planned: the Christian Democrats of Friedrich Merz won Germany’s snap legislative elections, and he will succeed Olaf Scholz as federal chancellor. The latter’s Social Democratic Party collapsed, as did the Greens and Liberals. The post-Nazi ultra-right of AfD is the second largest party, with over a fifth of the support, while the radical left of the Linke did better than expected. On paper, there seems to be no puzzle of coalitions to give the country a stable government, as the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, a tested pair, have a solid majority.

The ballot box response

The stakes in yesterday’s (Feb. 23) vote were high, and Germans responded: official data in hand, the voter turnout to renew the Bundestag reached 82.5 percent, more than 6 points higher than 76.4 percent in 2021.

As forecast, the winner of this round of elections is the Union (composed of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party CSU), which took home 28.6 percent. It was one of the worst results ever for the conservatives and significantly less than the 30-31 percent that polls had predicted, but still 4.4 points higher than the 24.1 percent four years ago that had relegated them to the opposition. The leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, will thus be the next Bundeskanzler. In terms of seats, this victory translates into 208 deputies out of the 630 total in the House.

In the second place, as projections anticipated, came the ultra-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) of Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, who, bypassing the SPD, secured 20.8 percent of the votes. It was the party’s best result since its founding in 2013, and it doubled from the 10.4 it won in the last legislative elections — no other formation gained as much support between the two election rounds: a treasure of 152 seats.

Third place went to the Social Democrats of the SDP, the outgoing party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which suffered the most significant loss in this election (-9.3 percent since 2021, when they came in first), remaining at 16.4 percent. It was also the party’s worst outcome since 1949. The number of Social Democratic seats at the Bundestag thus shrinks to 120 elected members.

All the forces of the traffic-light coalition in Berlin’s government over the past four years fared poorly: in addition to the debacle of the SPD, the Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) of outgoing vice chancellor Robert Habeck lost over 3 percentage points on the ground, reaching 11.6 percent (85 seats). The Liberals of the FDP, led by former finance minister Christian Lindner, lost more than 7 points and thus remained excluded from the Bundestag because, with their 4.3 percent, they failed to cross the 5 percent threshold.

Those, on the other hand, who achieved an almost unhoped-for success (so much so that there is talk of a true “political resurrection”) are the radical left of Die Linke. The party of Heidi Reichinnek and Jan van Aken did better than forecast, winning just shy of 9 percent: with 8.8 percent, it will take home 64 deputies. Finally, by a whisker, the BSW of Sahra Wagenknecht also remained out of the hemicycle, having failed to win over 4.97 percent.

Towards a grand coalition?

With the threshold for an absolute majority in the Bundestag set at 316, Merz will need to lean on some other party to govern. Given the FDP’s ouster from the House, the distribution of seats among the five forces present means that a deal between his conservatives and the Social Democrats, who have 328 deputies, should suffice.

After all, the “Grand Coalition” of Merkel’s era was the goal of the leader of the CDU, who aimed for a two-party alliance without the need for a third party in government. His approach has little to do with the Grünen on many vital issues, a factor that would have made a three-way coalition (CDU/CSU, SPD, and Greens) somewhat problematic.

Not that it’s smooth sailing now: the future chancellor himself admitted that the new government may not take office until Easter. However, there is a lot of pressure (domestic and international) on Berlin for Germany to resume its leadership role in Europe.

Some electoral trends

Excluding Merz’s victory, however, voters punished the mainstream parties rather severely. The Union itself had never fallen below the psychological threshold of 30 percent since World War II, and during the Merkel era, the worst result was 33 percent in 2017. According to an early analysis of the vote, the Christian Democrats lost about a million voters to the AfD, gaining two from the SPD and one from the FDP.

The collapse of the SPD, its worst result in 76 years, is indicative of a great impatience of the electorate with the policies of the center-left led by Scholz, who was not named as the SPD’s chief negotiator for the formation of a Große Koalition with the CDU and the CSU: among the names circulating for that role are those of the outgoing Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, and one of the party’s two co-leaders, Lars Klingbeil.

Even in the FDP, the shakeout was so strong as to expel the Liberals from the Bundestag and, consequently, force their candidate Lindner to retire from active politics. As for the Linke, the hemorrhage to the BSW (born in the fall of 2023 with the defection of Wagenknecht) was relatively contained (around 350,000 votes), while there were about 1.26 million voters disappointed by the SPD and Greens who decided to put their trust in Reichinnek & co. Finally, the dazzling success of the AfD stems mainly from the mobilization of abstainers: according to projections, about 2 million votes came from those who did not go to the polls in 2021.

The dynamics of voting

There were other interesting data concerning the vote distribution by geography and age. From a territorial point of view, Germany appears for the umpteenth time split in two, as if it never overcame the Cold War division, even after reunification.

At the so-called second vote (Zweitstimme) level — the proportional one that goes to parties on a national basis — the CDU came first in the entire former West Germany (in Bavaria, the CSU holds the record). In contrast, the former communist GDR saw the landslide victory of the AfD. It is immediately striking how, compared with 2021 results, the SPD was swept off the electoral map.

By age group, the CDU and the SPD did best among the over 70, winning 42 and 25 percent support, respectively. Among those under 25, the leading party is the Linke (with a quarter of the vote), while in the 25-44 bracket, the AfD won (23 percent among 25- to 34-year-olds and 26 percent among 35- to 44-year-olds).

By gender, the gap between male and female voters was generally small (around 2-3 percentage points) for all parties except for the ultra-right. Among the female electorate, 17 percent voted AfD. In contrast, this percentage rises to 24 percent for the male voters.

Finally, the parties that fared better among the more educated segments of society were the Greens (19 percent among voters with higher education versus 4 percent among those with basic education) and the Left (11 percent versus 5 percent). In contrast, the AfD did better among the less educated (28 percent versus 13 percent).