Germans vote in historic election, Merkel set to step down

Germans are voting to elect a new parliament that will then replace the veteran Chancellor Angela Merkel. The race has been extremely tight, and the coalition-building to follow will likely be messy.

Polling stations opened across Germany on Sunday morning, with just over 60 million people eligible to vote.
The Bundestag officially has 598 seats, and all of them are being contested on this occasion. The actual number of seats may vary, however, due to the country’s complicated parliamentary system, which also features so-called leveling and overhang seats.

The election is the first in nearly 16 years not to feature Germany’s biggest political heavyweight, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has served as chancellor since 2005. 

The subsequent battle to represent the CDU/CSU as a candidate for chancellor was won by Armin Laschet.
Pre-election opinion polls projected no clear favorite in the Bundestag race, but conclusively showed waning support for the conservative CDU/CSU alliance.

In early September, the Union’s support hit a record low of 20% – far below the nearly 33% result it achieved in the 2017 election. Meanwhile, its main rival, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), led by Olaf Scholz, surged to 26% support in mid-September.
- BERLIN, (rt.com) 26 
September 2021