German voters rebuked the country’s left-leaning administration for its handling of immigration and the economy, giving moderate conservatives the most votes in a parliamentary election on Sunday, followed by the extreme right.
The findings virtually probably indicate that Friedrich Merz, the head of the Christian Democrats, will be the nation’s next chancellor. He had a route to ruling Germany with just one coalition partner, the more stable situation his party had hoped for, according to returns reported early Monday morning.
“We’ve won it,” Mr. Merz said to supporters in Berlin on Sunday night, vowing to quickly assemble a legislative majority to run the nation and reestablish Germany’s dominance in Europe.
The election will now be a crucial component of Europe’s reaction to President Trump’s new global order. It was scheduled seven months in advance, following the fall of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unpopular and problematic three-party coalition. Voter turnout was at its greatest level in decades.
In an effort to spur economic development, Mr. Merz, 69, has pledged to tighten down on immigration and cut taxes and corporate restrictions. At a time when the Trump administration has created alarm by splintering long-standing relationships and siding with Russia, he also pledged to offer greater European leadership and a more forceful foreign policy to support Ukraine.
Once viewed as a possibly superior alternative to Mr. Scholz for the American president, Mr. Merz is a businessman who has never had a government ministerial position. However, in the closing days of the campaign, he pondered if the United States would continue to be a democracy under Mr. Trump. für the far-right Alternative für Germany, or AfD, he vehemently denounced what Germans perceived as Trump administration officials’ intervention.
Reporting was contributed by Christopher F. Schuetze, Melissa Eddy and Tatiana Firsova from Berlin; Sam Gurwitt from Aschaffenburg; Adam Sella from Potsdam; and Catherine Odom from Dresden.
