This Sunday, hundreds of thousands of Germans filed into polling stations to vote in the 2021 federal elections – and for the first time in 16 years, Angela Merkel is no longer a choice for Chancellor. Despite weathering a financial crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the fallout of Brexit, Merkel decided to step down after it was clear a “significant shift in German politics” would take place after the election. Sure enough, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) won with a slim 25.7% of the vote, narrowly beating out Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, which held 24.1% of the vote.

However, unlike the United States, the German political scene has more than two parties present. The Green Party, an environmentally-focused party, won 14.8% of the vote, while the Free Democratic Party (comparable to the Libertarian party in the US) won 11.5%. Lastly, two more extreme parties managed to secure a decent amount of seats in the parliament; the Alternative for Germany, a right-wing nationalist party, won 10.3% of the vote, while The Left, the direct descendant of the Communist party that ruled East Germany, won 4.9% of the vote.

The prime candidate for the new Chancellor of Germany is Olaf Scholz, the Vice Chancellor of Germany since 2018 and a prominent politician in the SPD. If the SPD is to have control over the government, however, they must form a coalition, or agreement, with other parties in order to agree on issues. So far, Scholz has stated that he is partial to a coalition with the Green party, and it is speculated that the SPD will ally with the Free Democratic Party to reach a majority in parliament. After 16 years of political stability, the world waits and watches to see where Scholz will take the German nation.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/27/europe/spd-cdu-german-election-results-intl-hnk/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/27/europe/olaf-scholz-profile-spd-germany-election-intl/index.html