SPD wins German election, CDU close second: preliminary results

The SPD won the 2021 German election with 25.7 percent of the vote, slightly ahead of the CDU which got 24.1 percent, according to official preliminary results published early Monday morning by Germany’s federal returning officer. But the name of the country’s next chancellor is still unknown as both SPD’s candidate Olaf Scholz and CDU’s candidate Armin Laschet voiced their intentions to form a ruling coalition.

In third place are the Greens, led by Annalena Baerbock, at 14.8 percent. Liberal party FDP is behind at 11.5 percent and AfD, the far-right party, fell at 10.3 percent. Die Linke, the far-left party, finished at 4.9 percent. Although they fall below the 5 percent threshold, the party will still enter the Bundestag due to an exception in German election law, as they won more than three “direct mandates”. 

Three potential coalitions that would have a majority in parliament could be formed: The traffic-light coalition consisting of SPD, the Greens and the FDP, the Jamaica coalition consisting of the CDU, the Greens and the FDP, and the grand coalition consisting of SPD and CDU. But a reissue of the grand coalition under the leadership of the SPD is considered highly unlikely, since both parties said they didn’t want to share power with each other this time.

Although the SPD won the electoral vote by a margin of 1.6 percent and Scholz announced he would start coalition talks with the Greens and the FDP, Laschet also stated that he will begin exploratory negotiations with both parties.

The German constitution does not specify that the chancellor has to belong to the largest parliamentary group. They only have to form a ruling coalition.