FDP leader resigns after German election result – as it happened

From 6h ago 00.52 GMT Final results The results are in, confirming the CDU/CSU on 28.5%, the AfD in second place on 20.8% – its best result ever – the SPD slumping by 10 percentage points to 16.4% and the Greens to 11.6%. The Left has surged to 8.8% and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance has just failed to get in after reaching just 4.972% according to the official results page. Share Updated at 01.26 GMT

5h ago 01.50 GMT Closing summary Thanks for joining our live coverage of the German election – we’re closing now but we’ll be back soon to bring you all the latest news. In the meantime, here’s a summary of the key developments: The final results confirmed Friedrich Merz and his CDU/CSU alliance on 28.5%, the AfD in second place on 20.8% – its best result ever – the SPD slumping by 10 percentage points to 16.4% and the Greens to 11.6% . The Left has surged to 8.8% and the liberal FDP – which triggered the early election by collapsing Olaf Scholz’s coalition – along with the far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance failed to meet the 5% threshold required top get into parliament.

The results mean Merz could form a so-called “grand coalition” with the SPD, without needing to find a third party . That would mean a future government would be more stable and less fractious than for example Scholz’s.

The Social Democratic party was left reeling on the back of a historically low vote share, with outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, admitting it was a “bitter result” .He said he would not be involved in any coalition talks with the CDU/CSU, with other SPD leaders expected to lead.

Merz hailed “a historic election evening,” and acknowledged the responsibility and the scale of the task ahead. He said he planned to form a coalition by Easter and told party faithful that “the world out there is not waiting for us and for lengthy negotiations.”

Speaking on a post-election panel of party leaders Merz also acknowledged the foreign policy challenges ahead. “After Donald Trump’s statements last week, it’s clear: this American government doesn’t care for Europe,” he said. “We need to see whether we don’t need to become more quickly independent in Europe in terms of our defence capabilities,” he added.

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) called the result “historic” for her party, having doubled the number of votes from 2021 . Weidel said her party remained open to coalition talks with other parties, and said excluding the AfD was the equivalent to “voter fraud”.

The AfD swept all five former East German states: Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and Thuringia . It won well over 30% of the vote in each state and as much as 38.6% in Thuringia – that’s where the AfD made history in September as the first far-right party to win a state election since the second world war.

Christian Lindner, the leader of the liberal FDP whose falling out with Scholz triggered the collapse of his coalition government and paved the way for early elections, resigned after his party failed to reach the 5% threshold to re-enter parliament. In a post on X, he said would retire from active politics and said he hoped the election would bring a “new start for Germany”. Share Updated at 01.51 GMT

6h ago 01.09 GMT Berlin-based journalist Thomas Vorreyer points out that had the vote been based only on those aged between 35 and 44 the AfD would have come out top. 26% of people in that age category voted for the far right party, with the CDU/CSU in second place on 24%. Bei Menschen, die 35 bis 44 Jahre alt sind, kommt die AfD auf 26 Prozent, wäre stärkste Kraft. Also bei jenen, die mitten im Leben stehen, Ausbildung lange fertig, Rente (Welche?) aber noch weit, weit weg. #Bundestagswahl2025 pic.twitter.com/JSDbk7HRHp — Thomas Vorreyer (@tvorreyer) February 23, 2025 Share

6h ago 00.58 GMT The far-right AfD has won in all five former East German states, Spiegel reports; that’s the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony and Thuringia. It has well over 30% of the vote in each state and as much as 38.6% in Thuringia – that’s where the AfD made history in September as the first far-right party to win a state election since the second world war. Share

6h ago 00.52 GMT Final results The results are in, confirming the CDU/CSU on 28.5%, the AfD in second place on 20.8% – its best result ever – the SPD slumping by 10 percentage points to 16.4% and the Greens to 11.6%. The Left has surged to 8.8% and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance has just failed to get in after reaching just 4.972% according to the official results page. Share Updated at 01.26 GMT

7h ago 00.39 GMT FDP leader Christian Lindner resigns As the vote-count nears completion, Christian Lindner, the leader of the liberal FDP, has resigned after it became clear his party would fail to reach the 5% threshold. In a post on X, he said would retire from active politics: The parliamentary elections brought defeat for the FDP but hopefully a new start for Germany. That’s what I fought for. Now I’m retiring from active politics. I have only one feeling: gratitude for almost 25 intense, challenging years full of productive work and debate. Lindner, 46, served as finance minister in Olaf Scholz’s unwieldy three-way coalition government but was often at odds with the Social Democrat chancellor. Matters came to a head in November when Scholz fired him after a bitter falling out over government spending, paving the way for the collapse of the coalition and early elections. Share

7h ago 00.27 GMT What the papers say The German papers are giving their verdicts on the day’s events. Bild, the country’s largest circulation newspaper, declared “Merz does it!” in its headline, adding among other things “SPD so bad as never before!”, “AfD almost doubled”, “The Greens cry, the Left celebrates”. View image in fullscreen Photograph: Bild The Süddeutsche Zeitung has used a quote from the victorious Friedrich Merz as its headline: “The world out there isn’t waiting for us” and reports that the chancellor-in-waiting wants to form a coalition by Easter. View image in fullscreen Photograph: suddeutsche-zeitung The Handelsblatt splashes on “Election winner Merz”, adding “The Union (CDU/CSU) wins the elections. The AfD achieves a record result. The SPD loses drastically – and the FDP fails to pass the 5% hurdle.” View image in fullscreen Photograph: Handelsblatt Share

7h ago 00.11 GMT One of the key things on Friedrich’s Merz’s plate will be dealing with Donald Trump and the effect his administration will have on Nato and the war in Ukraine in particular. “I never thought I would need to say something like this on television,” Merz said on a post-election panel of party leaders. “But after Donald Trump’s statements last week, it’s clear: this American government doesn’t care for Europe.” Merz also criticised what he called “interference” from Elon Musk, who has promoted the AfD, “drastic and shameful – similar to what we’ve heard from Moscow in the past”. And he said that Germany would have to wait to see “whether we will still be able to speak about Nato in its current form” when the alliance meets for its next summit in June. He added that he had not given up hope that Ukraine would be included in any negotiations with Russia on its future, perhaps with the “intervention of the US Congress” on Kyiv’s behalf against any attempt at exclusion by Trump. “We need to see whether we don’t need to become more quickly independent in Europe in terms of our defence capabilities,” he added. On Friday, Merz told public broadcaster ZDF that Germany would need to come to terms with the possibility that Trump might not stick with Nato’s mutual-defence pledge unrestrictedly. He said this meant that Berlin might need to become less reliant on the US with regard to their nuclear umbrella and advocated talks with Europe’s nuclear powers France and Britain about an expansion of their nuclear protection. Merz, a transatlanticist, has been more hawkish against Russia than the acting Chancellor Olaf Scholz, suggesting medium-range Taurus missiles might be sent to Kyiv under his reign, something Scholz has strictly rejected. Share

7h ago 23.58 GMT The Greens’ candidate for chancellor, vice chancellor Robert Habeck, has said that Merz would do well to moderate his tone after a hard-fought campaign. Merz has repeatedly criticised Habeck as a “failed” economy minister and said he will break up Habeck’s joint portfolio of economy and climate action in his cabinet.

“We have seen the centre is weakened overall, and everyone should look at themselves and ask whether they didn’t contribute to that,” said Habeck. “Now he [Merz] must see that he acts like a chancellor.” While the Greens coalition partner, the SPD, has lost heavily in these elections (down about 10 percentage points) and the FDP looks set to disappear from parliament, the Greens have lost only about 3 percentage points. Share

8h ago 23.40 GMT In its latest projection the broadcaster ZDF has put the far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) on 5% – just enough to get it into parliament. That will in turn affect how many seats other parties get and whether Friedrich Merz will have to turn to a third party – realistically the Greens, with whom the CDU and CSU disagree on many subjects – in order to form a coalition. The liberal FDP, which brought down Olaf Scholz’s coalition last year, is on 4.4% according to ZDF, not enough to get into parliament. View image in fullscreen Sahra Wagenknecht (R) of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance. Photograph: Ronny Hartmann/AFP/Getty Images Share Updated at 23.48 GMT

8h ago 23.34 GMT Ashifa Kassam For more than 150 years, the symbolism of the Siegessäule, or Victory Column, in Berlin’s Tiergarten, has shifted alongside German identity: from emblem of the empire to strategic relocation by the Nazis and, finally, its adoption as an icon of Berlin’s legendary love parade. On Sunday, as throngs of people gathered in its shadow, the golden statue bore witness to yet another shift – an election that had yielded an emboldened far right in a result that was unprecedented in Germany’s postwar history. “I’m devastated,” said David, 32. “And I’m scared and sad.” Preliminary results suggested that although the conservative CDU/CSU bloc had won the largest share of the vote (29%), likely to be the second force in the parliament was the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which garnered about 20% of the vote. Polls had long predicted this result, said David, who declined to give his surname. But now the question was what exactly it meant for the millions of Germans who were either racialised, like him, or who are migrants. Read on below: ‘Now is the time of monsters’: young Berliners despair at far-right surge Read more Share

8h ago 23.24 GMT The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, has also congratulated Friedrich Merz and the CDU/CSU on their victory. In a post on X he wrote: I look forward to working with the new government to deepen our already strong relationship, enhance our joint security and deliver growth for both our countries. Share Updated at 23.45 GMT