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A Close Election Result Leaves Germany in Uncertainty
After the close election result without any clear winners, complicated coalition negotiations are about to start
As expected, the German federal election had a very close result. The social democratic party (SPD) won the election with 25.7% of the votes slightly in front of the Christian democratic party (CDU/CSU) with 24.1%, but some of the previously smaller parties got significant shares of the votes as well. The green party had their best election result with 14.8%, the liberal party (FDP) got 11.5%, the right nationalists (AFD) 10.3%, and the left party with 4.9% of the votes only made it into the Bundestag thanks to a special rule in the 5% hurdle.
Coalitions
However, none of the coalitions that make sense was able to get a majority in the election. Neither the SPD/Green nor the CDU/FDP coalition got enough votes to form a government. The third coalition option that would make some sense would be SPD/Green/Left, but their combined seats also fall short of a majority by a few seats.
The so-called big coalition of SPD/CDU would have enough votes, but neither the parties themselves nor most of the voters are keen on continuing a big coalition government.
