Sept 27, 2021: After a closely contested election Germany, Angel Merkel’s outgoing government remains in office as acting government until it is replaced by a new government.

Merkel, 67, will then stand down and the new chancellor will take the reins.

Germany’s left-wing Social Democratic Party (SPD) has won the most seats in the country’s federal election, according to preliminary results, but the final make-up of the new government will take some time to shape up.

The center-left Social Democrats have won the biggest share of the vote in Germany’s national election, beating outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Union bloc in a closely fought race.

Election officials said early Monday that a count of all 299 constituencies showed the Social Democrats won 25.9 per cent of the vote, ahead of 24.1 per cent for the Union bloc.

Environmentalist Greens came in third with 14.8 percent, followed by pro-business Free Democrats with 11.5 percent. The two parties have already indicated that they are ready to discuss a tripartite alliance with one of their two main rivals to form a government.

The far-right alternative to Germany came in fourth with 10.3 percent of the vote on Sunday, while the left-wing party received 4.9 percent.

Meanwhile, the crowd at the Green party headquarters in Berlin cheered as the first exit polls were read out as preliminary results gave the party 14.8% of votes.

The election marks the end of Angela Merkel’s 16-year term in office, but her successor will not be decided until a coalition agreement is reached.

The SPD will now begin negotiations to form a new government, a process that could take weeks or months. After Merkel’s election victory in September 2017, it took more than five months to form a government. Although the initial count gives the SPD a slight lead over its nearest rivals, the results indicate a significant improvement for the party that won 20.5% of the vote in the last election in 2017.

As the votes were counted, party leader Olaf Schulz called the results a “great victory.”

The 63-year-old politician has served as vice chancellor and German finance minister in Angela Merkel’s grand coalition government since 2018, adding to the public profile as he steered Germany through the economic response to the pandemic.

Earlier in the evening, the mood at CDU headquarters was tense after the initial exit polls surfaced as the CDU, along with its sister party, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, was seeing the worst results in the history of the alliance.

The party campaigned for a message of stability for the country, while Angela Merkel has been seen as stable for almost 16 years. But now it is being reconciled with what he called the bitter night of bitter losses.

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