Merz's centre-right CDU leads in German federal elections, exit polls show

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Germany's top opposition leader Friedrich Merz will become the country's next leader after exit polls in Sunday's federal election showed his centre-right CDU party with an unassailable lead. Incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz acknowledged the defeat of his centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) after Sunday's election, which he described as a "bitter result".

The country is counting votes after tens of millions of voters cast their ballots in a key election that is said to be crucial to the future of Europe's largest economy and the EU's largest member state.

The official and final results of the vote have not yet been announced. However, according to current polls, the opposition leader Friedrich Merz, who will become the next German Chancellor, is leading in the national elections.

Merz is expected to get around 28.5 % votes, making his CDU party the strongest party in the next Bundestag.

In his first reaction after the vote, Merz said his now almost certain electoral victory showed that Germany was "once again present in Europe" and would govern reliably. The latest exit polls also suggest that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is heading for its strongest result for a far-right party since World War II.

Speaking on Sunday evening after the vote, the co-leader and chancellor-designate Alice Weidel said her party had "become the second strongest force" in the country.

Weidel said the AfD was "open to coalition talks" with Merz's party and that "otherwise no change of policy is possible in Germany." Meanwhile, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) of current Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his coalition achieved their worst post-war result in a national parliamentary election. According to early exit polls, they are expected to finish in third place with 16.5 %.

Scholz has already conceded defeat after the election, which he described as a "bitter result".

The result leaves the 66-year-old Scholz on his way out as German chancellor, a position he has held since December 2021.

More than 59 million German voters turned out for Sunday's election to choose the 630 members of the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, who will sit in the glass dome of the historic Reichstag building in Berlin.

euronews/ gnews.cz - RoZ