Berlin: Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by incumbent Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz has won the general election with 25.7 percent of the vote, bringing an end to the Angela Merkel era, according to the recently released provisional election results.
The SDP’s share of the vote surged by 5.2 percentage points from four years ago, while its main rival the conservative union of Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and its sister party Christian Social Union (CSU) suffered heavy losses, reports Xinhua news.
The provisional results showed the CDU/CSU union took only 24.1 percent of the vote in the recent parliamentary election, 8.9 percentage points lower than in the last polls.
It marks the end of the dominant role of the conservatives led by Merkel for over a decade in the country’s Bundestag, or the lower house of Parliament.
Meanwhile, the Green Party received 14.8 percent of votes in the election, making it the third-largest political faction in parliament, followed by the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the right-wing and Eurosceptic party Alternative for Germany with 11.5 percent and 10.3 percent respectively, according to the Federal Returning Officer.
Scoring 4.9 percent of the vote, the far-left Die Linke (Left Party) failed to pass the five-percent threshold to enter Parliament.
The September 26 elections were of great importance as Merkel will no longer continue in politics after almost 16 years in office.
As she will retire from her political career, Germany and, to some extent, the European Union will enter a new era with unclear prospects.
