Live coverage of Germany's federal elections

[Music Man]

Live stream from DW. Polls close at noon EST (6 p.m. local time).

[Polybius]

1. Which ones are the good guys?

Who's winning?

[Music Man]

3. See my post below.

Didn't realize I had replied to the thread instead of to your comment.

[Music Man]

2. The centre-left Social Democratic Party will likely have the most seats, but not by much.

Angela Merkel's center-right party, the Christian Democratic Union, will lose several seats.

The tricky thing will be forming a coalition to make a majority. The intent, as I understand it, had been for the SDP to have a coalition with the Greens--which performed well--and possibly with the socialist Die Linke, but an SDP-Green coalition still won't be enough for a majority, and Die Linke did not do well in this election--may not even be represented in the Bundestag.

So there will be many months of interesting negotiations. Could be SDP-CDU-Green or SDP-FDP-Green. Or even another SDP-CDU government.

I would put money on Olaf Scholz of the SDP to be Chancellor, but it will be interesting to see the bargaining that is about to happen.

[Hav]

4. Reading between the lines of what is currently said,

a CDU-Green-FDP coalition seems to be more likely as that is the preferred scenario of the FDP.
Both CDU and SPD need to get the Greens and the FDP on their side.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. SPD in wafer-thin lead as results come in

Germany is set for weeks or even months of protracted coalition talks after the race to produce a successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel after 16 years in power failed to produce a clear winner, with the centre-left Social Democrats and the centre-right conservative alliance in a tight first and second.

Exit polls and early counted results put the Social Democrats ahead by just a wafer-thin majority and both its chancellor candidate, Olaf Scholz, and his rival Armin Laschet of the CDU/CSU insisted they had earned the right to form a government.

The race remained undecided as results continued to come in.

The Green party, in jubilant mood after securing its best result in a national poll, despite having lost the lead position it held early on and dropping about 13 points since April, was confident of becoming a kingmaker in the upcoming coalition talks.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/26/germany-election-race-to-be-next-chancellor-going-to-wire-as-results-come-in

And The Guardian's live thread: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/sep/26/germany-election-2021-results-reaction-angela-merkel-era-ends-baerbock-scholz-laschet-spd-greens-cdu-live-latest-updates

Link to tweet

[UTUSN]

6. K&R