German elections: Social Democrats win by slim margin, Angela Merkel’s party seconds, find preliminary results | The world

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Angela Merkel’s party, is second with 24.1% or 1.6 percent less than the SPD.

Olaf Scholes is president of the SPD. He started the campaign in third place.

There was a significant improvement in the SPD’s performance compared to the last election – four years ago, the party had 5 percent fewer votes.

As a result, he will have more strength to form a majority coalition in parliament, but it will not be known after the talks who will actually be prime minister.

At the SPD headquarters, people had already begun to celebrate Sunday, when the poll results were released.

Scholes told his supporters that the Germans voted for the SPD because they wanted regime change.

European Parliament President David Sassoli greeted Souls on social media. This is the first reaction of an EU official after the referendum.

Angela Merkel’s party fails

The CDU, Merkel’s party, had the worst performance at the polls. In 2017, the CDU had 9 points more votes.

CDU candidate Armin Lashet was favored at the beginning of the campaign.

He went to his party headquarters a few hours after the polls closed, and it was not yet clear what the outcome would be – Lashet warned that his party would try to negotiate with a government even if it came in second.

The leader of the party with the most votes is the current Minister of Economy and Vice President of Germany (SPD is part of the coalition supporting Merkel’s government).

Scholes, a 63-year-old lawyer who specializes in labor law, has been a member of the SPD since 1975 and was first elected to the German parliament in 1998. He was Minister of Labor and mayor of Hamburg.

Considered to be very practical, he was at one time the target of jokes, he was called “Scholsomat”, a joke with his name and the word “automat”, suggesting that he was closer to a machine than a man.

With no one getting a majority in the German parliament, discussions will take place in the coming weeks between the major German parties to form a government coalition.

Negotiations could continue for months – a new government could be formed only at Christmas. Until then, President Angela Merkel will rule the country.

• Election in Germany: The country votes to decide the heirs of Angela Merkel
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