Germans head to the polls in critical election with far-right gains expected

The Germans went to the polls on Sunday to vote in the 2025 federal elections, which is almost guaranteed to train a new chancellor to take over from Olaf Scholz to lead the greatest European economy.

The Democratic Christian Union (CDU) and its affiliate the Christian Social Union (CSU) were interviewed in first place in the difficulty of the elections, putting their main candidate Friedrich Merz online for the Chancellery.

The extreme right alternative Fuer Deutschland (AFD) should be second online, before the Scholz Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens, which also was part of the last power coalition which collapsed to The end of last year.

This marks a change compared to 2021 The election, when the SPD came out in the lead, followed by the CDU / CSU. AFD won fourth place at the time.

The Germans will vote two votes in the polls, one to elect a deputy directly to represent their constituency and one for a list of parties. The second vote will determine the proportional composition of the German Parliament, the Bundestag, the parties sending their candidates to Berlin to ensure the representation.

There is also a 5% threshold that the parties must meet to deploy delegates to the Bundestag. Several of the small parties, including the left, the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), have long been questioned around this brand, the left by picking up slightly in recent days.

Attention will pass to the process of building the coalition after the vote. It is rare that a German party obtains an absolute majority, and whatever the group which guarantees the greatest number of seats in Parliament must generally find governance partners to obtain a majority in power.

This process can take weeks or even months – the parties have in -depth negotiations before signing a coalition agreement detailing their common political positions and plans.

“The latest polls indicate that the Conservatives (CDU / CSU) will receive the largest share of votes, but they will need one or two (unlikely) coalition partners, probably the SPD and / or the Greens,” said the Deutsche Bank analysts in a note earlier this week.

All the main parties said they would not enter a coalition with far -right AFD. The party’s result will always be closely monitored due to its popularity growth, despite a series of controversies and surveys on its conduct, which have also triggered nationally demonstrations.

The small parties will also be to the point this election – their entry into Parliament could influence whether a third coalition partner is necessary to form a majority government. They could also be essential if the new government wishes to make changes to the Constitution, which require the support of a two -thirds majority that the small parties could effectively prevent.

The election takes place several months earlier than originally expected due to the breakdown of the so -called coalition of traffic lights – which was composed of the Scholz SPD, the Green Party and the FDP – in November. The alliance had been in power since he succeeded the longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2021.

Months of political disputes and disagreements within the coalition on economic, budgetary and budgetary policy finally led to the collapse of the government, while Scholz The former Minister of Finance Christian Lindner licensed.

Measures were then taken to trigger an early election – which only occurred three times in the history of Germany. Scholz must first have asked for a vote of self-confidence in the country’s parliament, before suggesting the latter’s dissolution from the German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

The head of state then dissolved the lower room of the Parliament, fixing the date of the Sunday elections.