Germany will have a new chancellor. Its current leader abandons power, but it is likely that his party will stay with a reduced capacity. And the efforts of the Government of Donald Trump to influence the vote do not seem to have served much.
Sunday’s elections, which were held months earlier than expected after the collapse of the coalition that governed the country at the end of last year, gave some surprises and a lot of suspense.
On Monday morning, the results seemed clear enough to indicate that the democratic democratians could direct Germany with a single coalition partner, returning the country to the most durable form of bipartisan government that has directed it during most of the majority of This century.
Here we offer five conclusions of the results.
Merz is the probable new chancellor
The greatest German participation in decades gave the majority of the votes to the Christian Democratic Union and its Brother Party, the Christian Social Union. This means, almost certainly, that the next chancellor will be Friedrich Merz, a businessman who pilots his own private plane and has been raising the position for a long time.
Merz lost a struggle for power to lead the Christian Democratic Union in the early 2000s, against Angela Merkel, who was chancellor for 16 years. However, voters turned against their legacy, including a poor plan to depend more on Russia for natural gas and the decision to keep Germany’s borders open in 2015 and start receiving what would be millions of Refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and other places.
After the fall of the Christian Democratic Union of Power in 2021, Merz assumed the leadership of the party and took it to the right in migration and other issues. He felt more comfortable by campaigning about economics, promising to eliminate regulations and reduce taxes in an attempt to reactivate economic growth.
Merz is high already severe, with a dry humor. Surveys indicate that only one third of the country believes that it will be a good chancellor. Even some of their own voters said Sunday that they are not in love with him. But if you can quickly forge a government, you have the opportunity to fill out a leadership vacuum in Europe, which fights tensions in its relationship with the United States under Trump’s presidency.
Trump and NATO were in the spotlight
When the American vice president JD Vance delivered a speech at the Munich Security Conference last week, in which he rebuked the traditional European political power for excluding extremist parties, he woke up the election campaign, formerly numb. If Trump’s threats from a commercial war and lower military protection already worried the Germans, the discourse and the subsequent 180 degree turn of the president of the United States on Ukraine caused almost panic in Germany.
According to a survey published on Sunday afternoon, 65 percent of German voters are concerned that Germany will be helpless against President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Sunday night, in a post -election debate between leaders, Merz quickly brought up the threat facing Germany and Europe due to the new US administration.
“It has been clear that Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this government, is largely indifferent to the destiny of Europe,” he said. “I am very curious to see how we approach the Summit of the Otan of the end of June: if we continue talking about the Otan in its current state or if we need to establish an independent European defense capacity much faster.”
Musk didn’t seem to influence voters
The Alternative Extreme Right party for Germany, or AFD, doubled its percentage of votes four years ago, largely appealing to voters annoying immigration. In ancient Eastern Germany, it was first, ahead of Merz’s game.
However, the percentage of votes of the AFD seemed not to reach the level of support he had reached in the surveys a year ago. Many analysts expected a more robust result, after a series of events that locked their game and their emblematic theme.
The AFD received public support from Vance and the support of billionaire Elon Musk, Trump advisor. He tried to get political benefit from a series of mortal attacks perpetrated by immigrants in recent months, even in the last days of the campaign.
But that impulse never materialized.
The surprise of the night
The reaction to the recent attacks and the support of Trump officials may have even mobilized a late outbreak of support for Die Linke, the German left -wing party, which campaigned with a pro -immigration platform, according to some voters in interviews on Sunday .
Two months ago Die Linke was agonizing. Sahra Wagenknecht, her most popular member, founded a new more friendly game with Russia and harder with immigration last year. Many followed her, thinking that she was the future. Die Linke languished at 3 percent.
But Die Linke managed to turn the situation in a few months, thanks to a new couple of charismatic leaders and social media experts and the distancing that many young voters feel towards the majority matches. It reached what seemed to be almost 9 percent of the votes and more than 60 seats in Parliament.
Their campaign acts, which had a dance parties as of political rallies, began to attract so many young people who became unmissable events.
Party leaders became stars from social networks. Heidi Reichinnek, who is attributed a large part of the change, told a crowd on Sunday night that their success owed the many volunteers who went to the door talking with people about issues related to their pocket. Reichinnek told his supporters that “they did everything well.”
Scholz is out, but his party goes ahead
Although the surveys predicted that it would end in third place, Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz insisted until the end that, in some way, he would retain his position. He was wrong. His social democratic party obtained a percentage of 16 percent, a historical minimum, being third. Although Scholz will continue as an interim chancellor until Merz will take possession, he is expected to abandon active policy.
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However, his party will remain alive. It is very likely that he adopts the well -known role of a minor partner in a government led by conservatives. The so -called “great coalition” supported Merkel for three of his four mandates, and could be Merz’s best opportunity to get a stable government in a tumultuous era for Germany.