Germany‘s outgoing chancellor Angela Merkel‘s party Christian Democratic Union of Germany lost the elections by a narrow margin from the opposition Social Democrats, Reuters reported. This ends the 16-year-long conservative ruling in the country. The Democrats last won in 2005. 

As per projections from broadcaster ZDF, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) were on track for 26.0% of the vote, ahead of 24.5% for Merkel’s CDU/CSU conservative bloc, but both groups believed they could form the next government.

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The SPD’s recorded vote share marks an outstanding comeback for the party which has recovered some 10 points in support in just three months and improved its 20.5% result in the 2017 national election.

While neither the democrats nor conservatives managing to reach a clear mandate and both reluctant to repeat their grand coalition, what seems the most likely outcome is a three-way alliance led by either the Social Democrats or Merkel’s conservatives, reported Reuters.

As per reports, forming a new coalition can take months and will likely involve the smaller Greens and liberal Free Democrats (FDP).

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“We are ahead in all the surveys now,” the Social Democrats’ chancellor candidate, Olaf Scholz, said in a round table discussion with other candidates after the vote as per a Reuters report.

“It is an encouraging message and a clear mandate to make sure that we get a good, pragmatic government for Germany,” he added after earlier addressing jubilant SPD supporters.

Olaf  Scholz, the finance minister in Merkel’s cabinet and former mayor of Hamburg, if claims a coalition, would become the fourth post-war SPD chancellor after Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schroeder.

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Scholz’s conservative opponent Armin Laschet,  however, signalled his bloc was not ready yet to concede and argued that it is not always the first vot

“It hasn’t always been the first-placed party that provided the chancellor. I want a government where every partner is involved, where everyone is visible – not one where only the chancellor gets to shine,” Reuters quoted Laschet saying at the round table