7:58 pm
The CDU candidate Friedrich Merz declares victory in the 2025 German elections. After the first exit polls, the centre-right CDU’s Friedrich Merz has come out of the election as its main winner and is now likely set to become chancellor, replacing Olaf Scholz from the centre-left SPD, who admitted defeat on Sunday evening.
Merz declares victory as the CDU celebrate
The incoming government will inherit an economy that has shrunk for two years in a row for the first time in decades, rising living costs, and calls for a radical overhaul of its immigration and asylum rules.
Joachim-Friedrich Martin Josef Merz is a German politician who has served as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union since January 2022 and led the CDU/CSU parliamentary group as well as being Leader of the Opposition in the Bundestag since February 2022.
Scholz admits defeat
Tens of millions of Germans headed to the polls this Sunday for snap federal elections in a vote that will shape the course of the EU’s largest member state and its biggest economy for the next four years, the former Chancellor Olaf Scholz admits defeat, leaving Merz as the frontrunner for the vacant Chancellor position.
But the election drama is not over yet, the parties need form a government and get a coalition pact that will be strong enough to form government.
Greens: ‘Disappointed, but not surprised’
The Greens have been shaken by several significant setbacks tonight. On the one hand, they have not outperform polls that saw them losing ground — instead, they will have to settle for a result of under 13%, according to EU News.
Greens’ Habeck doesn’t rule out coalition with CDU and SPD
The Greens’ chancellor candidate, Robert Habeck, said on Sunday evening his party was ready for a “Kenya coalition” with the CDU and SPD. However, he noted that the decision to involve the Greens in the coalition rests with CDU leader Friedrich Merz.
