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Polls close in Germany: Center-right leads. Neo-Nazis second (but they'll be shut out of power) [1]
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Date: 2025-02-23
Germans have voted. The pre-election polls indicated that the four main parties would finish in the following order (with their polling percent in brackets)
Exit polls released when the polls closed (12 EST) indicate that the final result will be close to the prediction. What does this mean?
The bad news. The neo-Nazi AfD has improved from 5th place with 10.4% of the vote in the 2021 German elections . Western media has characterized this as a shocking development. But as shown above, this was hardly unexpected. They will likely end up with 20% of the vote.
This result tracks in Europe, which has seen a rise in the far right. Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party finished second in the 2022 French presidential election with 41.5%. Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy party finished first in the 2022 Italian elections with 43.8%. (Question: Is it coincidence that many far right parties are headed by women — or something else?)
The good news. Four in five Germans voted against the far right.
Because of Germany’s multiparty system. Incoming Chancellor-presumptive, Mertz will have to make deals with at least one other party to form a coalition government. He has ruled out any possibility of that party being the AfD. This result means that the AfD can make a lot of noise. They can crow they are making inroads into the electorate. But they will have no real power — at least at the federal level.
This is the current breakdown of seats 11.50 EST (not all votes have been counted)
The winning coalition will need at least 367 seats.
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