Our live coverage has ended for the day. Read more about the German elections here.
Robin Fugmann, 20, an ardent supporter of Olaf Scholz, the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), told CNN he was delighted by the election results so far.
Deborah Piraba, a 27-year-old law student and Young Christian Union Democrat, told CNN at the CDU headquarters that the results were “disappointing” but that nothing was lost yet.
“We have to consider that we are coming out of 16 years with Angela Merkel, whom I am a big fan of. I am already sad she is leaving the office,” she said. “We call her Mutti (Mom), she knew how to talk to people and has the connection with people and she has done so much for Germany. This made her so special comparing her with other politicians. I will also miss her sense of humor.”
Earlier today: Germany’s left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD) celebrated a narrow lead in exit polls published after voting ended in Germany’s federal election, but the final result of the closely fought contest remains uncertain.
A Forschungsgruppe Wahlen exit poll for CNN affiliate n-tv suggested the SPD had 25.7% of the vote, with the center-right Christian Democratic Union of outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel on 24.6%, followed by the Greens at 14.4%, the FDP at 11.7% and the AfD at 10.7%.
The narrowness of the margins means the German elections are at this point too close to call and predicting the next government – and chancellor – is impossible. A large number of postal ballots also remain to be counted.
Whichever party comes out in front, lengthy coalition negotiations are expected before a government can be formed.
Peter Altmaier, of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, told CNN’s Fred Pleitgen that the election result is “disappointing,” however, it is not a “landslide victory for the opposition parties.”
The CDU party favors a “centre-based” government, according to Altmeier.
“We believe that a centre-based government is the best solution for Germany and that means the leadership of Christian Democrats together with the Green Party and the Liberal Party, we call it the ‘Future Coalition,’” he added.
Altmaier explained that now is not the time to discuss individual candidates but focus on the future political direction of the country. He sounded still hopeful about the upcoming final results, saying “nobody can exclude that the Christian Democratic Party will lead the election results finally.”
Reflecting on the election, Altmaier said: “The clear message to all the people around the globe is that democracy in Germany is quite stable, this was not the day of extremist parties - not from the left not from the right - it was the day of the conventional parties from the centre of our democracy.”
“This is a positive indication. We have now three different parties able to form a coalition, in different coalition constellations, we will see what happens, but I am basically optimistic that’s a success story of the country.”
Climate change was one of the primary issues in this German federal election season, especially after the deadly floods in July. While democratic parties made it a part of their campaign, climate activist Luisa Neubauer said she is not encouraged because the details are lacking.
“All the democratic parties wrote down in their manifestos that they would want to stick to the 1.5 degree limit [set in the Paris climate agreement.] But none of them provided plans that were sufficient to actually stay below 1.5. So of course, there’s this huge discrepancy between the targets and measures. That’s what we advocated for to be closed,” she told CNN.
If no party gets into the details of measures they will take to achieve climate targets, then it becomes a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” Neubauer said.
“If none of the parties talk about the climate crisis we’re in, the catastrophe we are in, people won’t be ready and up for the radical changes that are desperately needed,” she explained. “Then no party will provide measures that are actually sufficient. So we are seeing how a vicious cycle has really put this election campaign in a weird spot where nobody talks about … a structural and all-party effort.”
The hope for climate action comes from the people and not politics, she added.
“I don’t expect the hope to come from the party politics. Hope is coming from the people and nothing was more hopeful this summer than 620,000 people who marched with us on the streets, making very clear that the 1.5-degree limit is not up for debate. That we are ready for the changes, and we’re no longer waiting for politics to create the changes but we would rather decide to be the change ourselves.”
As the left-leaning Social Democratic Party narrowly leads in exit poll results, its member and Germany’s state secretary for environment Jochen Flasbarth says it’s the first time his party “really fought for climate, fought for the environment.”
“There was always a positive environment protection position. It was a first time that it was not tactical, that was really coming out of the heart of Social Democrats. And so this is also an election for climate, for the environment,” Flasbarth told CNN.
While his party currently leads with a narrow margin according to the exit poll results, he said that a clear picture may not emerge soon.
“It is absolutely not clear what will happen during this evening. It is still too close,” he said Sunday. “We will need to wait a whole night until we can see what kind of government we will see in the future.”
If SPD does get the chance to form a coalition, Olaf Scholz’s first choice in forming a coalition would be the Green Party, Flasbarth said.
“This will not be sufficient to reach a majority in parliament. That is clear right now. So there are two more options together with liberals. And it is still possible to have a government [comprised of] the Social Democrats, the Geen Party and the left,” he said.
As Angela Merkel’s 16-year-old tenure ends, Flasbarth said he would miss her.
“I have to say that she has been leading the country in a very inclusive way. She was popular also outside the close conservative group of voters,” he said. “After 16 years, now it is time for change.”
Olaf Scholz arrived at SPD Party HQ to a rousing reception of whoops, hoots and chants of “Olaf, Olaf, Olaf!”
It seems he waited for Armin Laschet, candidate for the conservative CDU party, to finish speaking on the other side of the German capital.
Every sentence he uttered was met with another rapturous round of applause.
“The voters have decided that the Social Democratic party has gained, and this is a great success,” Scholz said.
“Many citizens have put their crosses next to the SPD because they want there to be a change in government and also because they want the next chancellor of this country to be called Olaf Scholz,” he said.
Talking about what Scholz had campaigned for, he said the electorate had given the party a mandate.
As other party members finished speaking he was joined on stage by his team and waved to the crowd dotted with the SPD red.
The crowd shouted “Olaf!” before he left.
WATCH:
After exit polls showed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s right-leaning party trailing, candidate Armin Laschet spoke at the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) headquarters.
“We cannot be content with this result,” he said as Merkel stood on stage with him. “We can foresee that there could be a government with three parties. We have gotten a mandate against a leftist government. We will do everything to try to build a coalition.”
Currently, left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SDP) has a narrow lead.
“An important legislative period lies ahead of us, I am ready for this task,” Laschet added.
The current exit poll numbers are the worst showing ever in CDU’s history.
“This is a result with bitter losses. There’s no way to sugarcoat it,” said Paul Zemiak, Secretary General of the CDU and member of the Bundestag, at the headquarters. “This result really hurts.”
“But the evening is long, and we will see what the next few hours will bring,” he added.
The narrowness of the margins means the German elections are at this point too close to call and predicting the next government — and chancellor — is impossible. A large number of postal ballots also remain to be counted.
WATCH:
While the final result of the closely-fought German federal election remains uncertain, exit polls show that the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD) is narrowly ahead with 26% of the vote, and Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) trailing at 24%.
Even if the final result changes this vote distribution, the basic fact is “after 16 years in power, almost 76% of Germans have not voted” for Merkel’s party, CNN commentator Dominic Thomas said.
Neither CDU nor SPD will have a real opportunity to create a coalition, he added.
The slow erosion of the popularity of Merkel’s party could be a result of infighting and the political shifts that have occurred over the last 16 years, Thomas explained.
In a departure from the traditional coalition between center-left and center-right, there is a movement toward center and center-left.
“[It] better reflects the younger electorate, the move away from the conservative CDU,” he said. “Nobody does not believe in environmental issues and climate. It is just a question of degrees — To what extent do we impose emission controls, what dates do we expect to reach them?”
Germany’s political landscape and its relationships with international partners will be characterized by this “move away” from the conservative party and from Merkel’s brand, Thomas added.
“It is clear that the momentum is moving more towards issues that concern social welfare, green politics.”
The left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD) is narrowly ahead in exit polls published after voting ended in Germany’s federal election, a Forschungsgruppe Wahlen exit poll for CNN affiliate n-tv suggests, but the final result of the closely fought contest remains uncertain.
While Berlin’s marathon comes to a close, the country’s electoral race is reaching its finish line.
The country will have an idea of where German politics goes next after Angela Merkel at about 6 p.m. local time (12 p.m. ET).
Over at Social Democratic Party headquarters, a short walk down from Checkpoint Charlie, the atmosphere is building slowly.
Audio from German broadcasters has started to fill the air and media from around the world has descended and are jostling into position.
A statue of the former German Chancellor Willy Brandt stands in the building’s atrium next to a red platform where current SPD leader Olaf Scholz will appear later today.
The federal elections commissioner says voter turnout by 2 p.m. CET (8 a.m. ET) stood at 36.5%.
By this time on election day four years ago, voter turnout was at 41.1%.
However, it’s worth noting that postal votes have not yet been added to today’s tally.
CNN spoke to several voters at a Berlin polling station earlier today.
One voter said climate change was a deciding factor when selecting the party they were voting for. When asked if they would miss Angela Merkel, the voter added, “I mean, she stood in a way for stability, but maybe not for progress. And so that’s okay that she’s retiring now.”
Another voter told CNN it was “time for a change.”
“I think of course Angela Merkel did also good things in her time. But I think of course there’s also some issues or some points that for my opinion, um I would make it different. So I think generally it’s good for a change, always the same is not possible to go further,” he said.
German elections to the Bundestag are run on a system of proportional representation, meaning that each party’s vote share relates directly to how many seats they get in parliament.
That principle makes it virtually impossible for a party to lead a government alone; coalitions must instead be formed after the vote, and these often contain more than two groups.
Each citizen has two votes: Germans are asked to pick their local lawmaker, and also their preferred overall party. Once the results come in, a race will start to put together enough seats to govern, meaning smaller parties can become kingmakers.
Ben Schreer, from the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ (IISS) Berlin-based Europe office, told CNN before the vote: “Whoever wins on paper on Sunday night probably can’t be sure that he or she will actually lead the government, because there’s going to be so many permutations.”
Schreer added: “We may not know until November, if we’re lucky.”
German politics is dominated by two parties — the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the left-leaning Social Democratic Party, or SPD — who have governed together in a coalition for the past eight years.
But other parties have grown in popularity over the past decade as the CDU and SPD have lost ground. This election is particularly close; the CDU and SPD have both held polling advantages, and the Green Party has also emerged as a serious contender.
Here are the candidates:
Armin Laschet: Christian Democratic Union
Merkel’s successor at the helm of the CDU is Armin Laschet, 60, a long-time ally of the chancellor and the party’s deputy leader since 2012.
A devout Catholic whose father was at one point a coal mining engineer, he was selected as the party’s candidate after a torturous leadership tussle.
Laschet has a background in law and journalism, and was elected to the German Bundestag in 1994.
Merkel has voiced her support for Laschet, but despite her efforts to persuade Germans to stick with the CDU, polling suggests her replacement as the party’s leader has struggled to win over Germans.
Olaf Scholz: Social Democratic Party
His foremost opponent is the SPD’s Olaf Scholz, who has taken a surprise lead in the polls in recent weeks, leaving him as the marginal frontrunner heading into Sunday’s vote.
Like Laschet, Scholz has a long history as a political player in Germany. He has been Merkel’s finance minister and vice-chancellor since 2018. He previously served as Minister for Labour and Social Affairs between 2007 and 2009. These roles placing him arguably in a better position to run as her natural successor than her own party’s candidate.
Scholz has earned increased visibility as he navigated Germany’s economic response to the pandemic, and cleared the last electoral hurdle with an assured performance in the final television debate.
The SPD, the oldest political party in Germany, set up in 1863, favors a stronger focus on social issues and wants more taxes for the more affluent individuals in Germany.
Annalena Baerbock: Green Party
The Green Party’s leader Annalena Baerbock caused a brief sensation in German politics when she surged in the polls early in the campaign, prompting voters to wonder whether she could become the country’s first ever Green chancellor.
The Green Party is now being seen as the potential kingmakers in coalition negotiations.
Christian Lindner: Free Democratic Party
Another party which could be possible kingmakers in coalition talks is the liberalist Free Democratic Party (FDP).
The FDP have never led a German government but have traditionally held influence over the decades, mostly in coalitions with the CDU and the SPD.
Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla: Alternative for Deutschland (AfD)
The far-right AfD remains a stubborn presence on the political scene, helmed by Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla.
The refugee crisis that sparked the AfD’s surge in German politics back in 2015 has subsided as a pressing political issue, but the party remains an outlet for voters angered by immigration issues. In March, they became the first German party since the Nazi era to be put under government surveillance.
It’s currently the third biggest party in the German parliament and the largest opposition party for the past four years.
In 2017, the AFD managed to steal voters from the CDU (those voters unhappy with Merkel’s shift to the center) and from the SPD. However, the party has struggled to keep its momentum going since then and faced harsh criticism over ties to the extreme far-right.
Several of the party leaders called on the public to head to polling stations and cast their ballots in the parliamentary elections in Germany on Sunday.
The CDU’s Armin Laschet told reporters: “We all feel that this is a very important federal election, an election that decides the direction of Germany in the next few years, and that is why every vote counts, and that is why I hope that everyone will use their right to go to the polls, so that democrats can elect a new government in the end.”
Olaf Scholz, leader of the left-leaning SPD, said he hoped Germans would give him the mandate to become the next chancellor.
“Now I hope that as many citizens as possible will go to the polls and cast their votes and make possible what has become apparent, namely that there will be a very strong result for the SPD. And that the citizens give me the mandate to become the next chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,” he said.
Meanwhile, Annalena Baerbock, the chancellory candidate for the Green Party, also made some brief remarks after casting her vote in her hometown of Potsdam on Sunday afternoon.
She asked people to cast their votes in order to enter a new era and emphasized the importance of democracy.
“Every vote will count in this election, as we have seen in the last few weeks and how close it will be. Of course, we hope for a few more votes in view of the poll results so that we can create a real new beginning in this country,” she said.
Germans are voting in a knife-edge parliamentary elections Sunday to find out who will eventually take charge of the country and replace Angela Merkel, who has spent the last 16 years as chancellor.
The race to become Merkel’s successor is tight, and the ultimate victor may not be known for days or even weeks after polls close.
Latest polling on Saturday suggested the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) hold a small but narrow lead over Merkel’s party, the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Why the vote matters: Merkel has been a stabilizing force in Europe since she took on the role in 2005.
The chemist-turned-political mainstay has withstood a wave of populism, a financial crisis, a pandemic and Brexit to carve out an impressive legacy as the world’s most successful female leader.
Germany has the largest economy in Europe and the result of this election will matter for European and global economies. Around 60.4 million people aged 18 and above are eligible to vote in Sunday’s ballot, according to figures from Germany’s Federal Statistics Office.
Key moment to watch for: Poll stations opened at 8 a.m. local (2 a.m. ET) and will close at 6 p.m. local (12 p.m. ET), with exit polls expected almost immediately after.
