Published On 23 Feb 2025
Germany’s opposition conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party has been projected to win the national election, putting leader Friedrich Merz on track to be the next chancellor, exit polls show.
On Sunday, the first exit polls said Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance had won at least 28.5 percent of the votes, crushing the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) of the outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, with SPD looking at around 16 percent.
Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) also roughly doubled its score to at least 19.5 percent and were in second place, the exit polls said.
Germany’s election authority noted that 52 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots four hours before the closure of polling stations in Sunday’s high-stakes snap election, which took place due to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition government collapsing last November.
“Tonight we will celebrate and from tomorrow we start working,” Merz said in a first reaction to the exit polls in Berlin, surrounded by supporters.
“The world out there is not waiting for us.”
Merz – a longtime party rival of ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel – has vowed to crack down on irregular immigration and remedy Germany’s economic policies.
Reporting from Berlin, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said that the CDU leader has already delivered a message to Germans, saying it was time for the country to have a “solid government” and show it is “present in Europe”.
She noted that “Merz is known to be much more conservative” than Merkel.
“He has a very tough stance against immigration, and he has been working together recently with the far-right AfD on anti-migration policies,” Vaessen said, adding that he has been heavily criticised for working together with the far right.”
But 69-year-old Merz has reiterated in the past that he is not aligned with the AfD’s anti-migration rhetoric and also hopes to halt its rise, which has stunned many in a country still seeking to atone for its dark Nazi history.
For now, the AfD – basking in the vocal support of key allies of US President Donald Trump – is set to sta