German Election: Merkel becomes Germany’s longest serving Chancellor with weakest margin ever

The incumbent German Chancellor Angela Merkel is on her way to become Germany’s longest-serving chancellor as her party is projected to win the majority of the votes and seats in German parliament in Sunday’s election. However, it was her worst showing ever.

Here are the key updates,

• According to latest projections, Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, along with her sister party Christian Social Union are set to receive 32.8 percent and 217 seats in 631 members strong Bundestag parliament. This is the party’s worst result in almost 70 years, and Merkel’s worst showing ever. In the last election, Merkel’s party had won 41.5 percent of the votes.
   
• The main opposition party, Social Democratic Party (SPD) is set to win 20.4 percent of the votes or around 134 seats in the parliament. This has been SPD’s worst performance in the post- WWII era.
   
• Germany’s right-wing populist party, Alternate for Deutschland (AfD) has been the biggest winner as they are set to enter the Bundestag parliament for the first time since its creation.  They are projected to win 13.4 percent of the votes or around 90 seats in the parliament. In the former East Germany, AfD is the second biggest party, ahead of SPD and is just behind CDU/CSU by 5 points.
   
• Free Democratic Party (FDP) is set to become the fourth largest party with 10.7 percent of the votes or more than 70 seats in Bundestag.
   
• Both German Left Party (Die Linke) and Green Party are set to win 9 percent of the votes each.

While Merkel can continue to govern Germany allying with SPD like the last time, but SPD leaders have shown little or no appetite for such coalition. That would leave Merkel to take FDP as a partner or make a grand coalition with FDP, left, and the Green.

The euro has not been impressed at all with Merkel’s poor showing and was little changed. The single currency is currently trading at 1.193 against the dollar.