Provision results show Germany’s opposition conservatives CDU/CSU has won the national election, putting leader Friedrich Merz on track to be the next chancellor, with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) coming in second, its best-ever result.

    Germany’s election authority says 82.5 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in Sunday’s vote, making it the highest turnout since German reunification in 1990.

    Germany’s electoral system rarely produces absolute majorities, and it is expected that two or more parties will form a coalition, following potentially difficult negotiations that will take weeks or even months before the Bundestag elects the next chancellor.

    The Left wins Berlin for the first time

    Die Linke, or The Left party, has scored a “surprise victory” in the German capital, Berlin, securing 19.9 percent of the vote, according to the DPA news agency.

    The figure marks double the amount of support The Left received in the 2021 election, the agency said, adding that the party had never won the most votes in Berlin in a federal election before.

    In the last vote, it had finished fourth.

    The CDU won 18.3 percent in Berlin, while the Greens suffered a sharp decline, dropping from 22 percent in 2021 to 16.8 percent this year.

    The AfD also made signifiant gains, rising to 15.2 percent from 9.4 percent, while Scholz’s SPD came in fifth with 15.1 percent.

    For the SPD, which had won 22.2 percent of the vote in the last election, the “result marks a historic defeat”, the DPA reported.

    “Having won the most votes in Berlin in the last federal election, the party has now fallen to fifth place – its worst performance in the capital since reunification in 1990.”

    What does a conservative win mean for Germany-China relations?

    Merz has promised to take a tougher stance on China, warning during the election that investing in the country comes “with great risk” for German companies and referring to Beijing, Russia, North Korea, and Iran as an “axis of autocracies”.

    Despite his strong words, Merz will face a tough reality on the ground as voters want economic recovery, says Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, an assistant professor at Taiwan’s National Donghua University.

    China is one of Germany’s top trading partners, but also a source of industrial competition as the country’s manufacturing-driven economy stagnates.

    “I don’t expect a fundamental shift because of the reality that Germany’s industry is in decline. The economy has been in recession. There’s frustration and anxiety about the economy and immigration, and China remains a very close trade partner for the country,” she said.