*Scholz acknowledges defeat, congratulates challenger
Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
US President president Donald Trump has hailed Sunday as a “great day for Germany” after an election in which conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz claimed victory.
Exit polls published in Germany’s election, suggested frontrunner Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party came out well in front, as the far-right AfD made large gains.
In polling that was watched closely across Europe and in the United States, the CDU/CSU bloc was on course to win first place with 28.5 per cent of the vote, followed by AfD with 20 per cent, marking the far-right party’s strongest result ever, public broadcaster ZDF reported.
Incumbent chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) garnered just 16.5 per cent of the vote, its worst-ever result, the projection showed.
Claiming victory, although the final official result is expected early on Monday, Merz said Germany’s conservatives will do everything they can to form a government capable of taking action as quickly as possible, UK’s Daily Independent reported.
“Tonight we will celebrate and from tomorrow we start working,” he said in a first reaction in Berlin, surrounded by supporters.
Following the exit polls, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social: “Much like the USA, the people of Germany got tired of the no common sense agenda, especially on energy and immigration.”
German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the snap election, the fourth in Germany’s history, after Scholz lost a vote of confidence on 15 January.
Germany’s conservative election winner, Merz said his top priority was to work towards unity in Europe in order to counter interference from the United States or Russia. He had no illusions about challenges in the relationship with the US, Merz said in a panel at broadcasters ARD and ZDF.
“The interventions from Washington were no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow,” he said, in reference to support offered by US billionaire Elon Musk to Germany’s far right during the election.
The poll put leader Merz on track to be the next chancellor while the far-right Alternative for Germany came in second on its best ever result, projected results showed.
“A decisive victory for our political family, for Germany, and for Europe. Congratulations Friedrich Merz! One thing is clear: you will be Germany’s next chancellor,” said Greece Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Parties on the far left and far right, meanwhile, were projected to make historic gains. The country’s increasingly fractured politics could complicate the job of forming a coalition to govern.
“The main thing is to create a functioning government in Germany as quickly as possible with a good parliamentary majority,” he Merz told supporters at the Christian Democrats’ headquarters in Berlin.
“The world out there is not waiting for us. And it is not waiting for lengthy coalition talks and negotiations. We must now quickly become capable of acting again so that we can do the right thing at home, so that we are present in Europe again, so that the world sees that Germany will govern reliably again,”he added.
The government will be expected to take on the country’s most pressing challenges: boosting its stagnating economy and deficient infrastructure, and reassessing its role in the shifting global order. Migration also emerged as a major issue during the campaign.
Preliminary projections, based on partial vote counts, showed the Christian Democrats, or CDU, leading with 28.9 percent, followed by the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, with 19.9 percent. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats were taking a drubbing with 16.2 percent; the Greens were fourth with 13 percent.
In the country that gave rise to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, the establishment parties reiterated a long-standing commitment to the so-called political fire wall against the far right: They said they would refuse to form a coalition with the AfD.
More than 59 million people were eligible to cast their ballots in the early election, which was prompted by the collapse of Scholz’s center-left government in November, the Washington Post stated.
Merz, a self-described social conservative and economic liberal, has pulled the Christian Democrats to the right, particularly on immigration, since succeeding former chancellor Angela Merkel as party leader in 2021.
During the campaign, Merz called Europe’s immigration system “dysfunctional” and pledged to implement permanent border controls and more restrictive asylum rules. He criticized Germany’s generous subsidies to migrants, calling the aid an incentive, and said the country should quickly turn away illegal arrivals.
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