this is due to every news coming to live from berlin angle america wins a fourth term mr lee is chancellor but it's a chastening evening for the country's main party. we've emerged as the strongest party the c.d.u. with the c.s.u. it's now up to us to form a government and no government can be formed against us. it's

a positive spin on what looks like heavy losses for her party but she wasn't the only leader left looking she finished the job it is but if i find i have recommended to the s.p.d. leadership that we go into the opposition. medical's main chance our march and show its concerns defeat after projection results indicate the worst ever showing for his center left social democrats plus a triumph on the up starts in german politics the far right alternative from germany. being no we have been given an electoral mandate and we will accept this electoral mandate with humility because millions of voters have given us their trust. that after all of tonight's results coming up with our correspondents around the country.

i'm sarah harmon welcome to d.w. special coverage of the german election until america was on course for her fourth term as chancellor but it has been a bruising night for the country's main parties both merkel's conservatives and shoals of social democrats are protected to have suffered big losses meanwhile the far right of the night's big winners let's dive in now and get a detailed look at the numbers so far now these are projected results based on the numbers as we have them they are not final but generally at this point in the evening eleven p.m. berlin time we have a pretty good result of where things stand so you can see there that americans conservatives the c.d.u. c.s.u. have thirty nine excuse me thirty two point nine percent almost thirty three percent the s.p.d.m. led by martin shoals coming in at twenty point six percent the left party down there at nine percent the greens eight point nine percent that's the environmental

party the pro-business f.t.p. ten point six percent and the far right a d. thirteen percent all of the other smaller fringe parties were put together in gray there are four point nine percent of course you need five percent to get into germany's so none of those parties will to be on course we can also take a quick look at the gains and losses this will show you how things have changed in comparison to the last election four years ago. so just some context for our viewers who maybe don't remember quite what happened last time we can say that this time around americans conservatives have lost over eight percent as have the s.p. days the s.p.d. excuse me germany's mainstream parties are really suffering based on these projected results the left party up half a percent as are the greens the pro-business f.d.p. gaining almost six percent there and in blue you see the big winners of the night the i have a that's a populous party that's up eight point three percent so what does all of this mean

for germany and for the world for some analysis i'm going to take you over the table with christopher spring date from our parliamentary studios he has a good idea about what we should be watching for tonight and in the days to come come with me. christopher great to have you here in the studio tonight doesn't look like merkel's got the numbers to govern alone her conservatives are going to need a coalition partner we heard earlier in the evening the as p.d. her current partner saying no way no how we're going with the opposition what's merkel got left well we should make the point that coalition government is typical of german politics it's very seldom that any party has an absolute majority in the german parliament so. yes she's facing. a tough sell to try and find a working coalition one option would have been the grand coalition that she is

currently heading but as you just mentioned the social democrats have come out very early tonight saying they're going to go into opposition let's see if that holds up that you know i don't want to completely exclude that possibility but you know it is the worst ever result for the social democrats. a wounded animal and that lashing out and. most of the party's base most of the party's leaders they all want to get into office. let's see if that holds up the other option is what's called the jamaica coalition it's called the jamaica coalition because it mirrors the colors of the jamaican flag so you have black for the conservatives yellow for the pro-business f.t.p. the liberals and green for the environmentalist greens. that combination is the only other combination that would have a working majority in parliament. the pro-business liberals they are natural

partners of the conservatives they have ruled germany with them for for many decades actually but i don't think really it's fit into that kind of pro-business party in a party whose big platform is environmental change really work together in a coalition that's going to be one of the difficult ones not least because of course the greens they have a very lively. membership and they will be a little bit skeptical of going into this kind of coalition will have to see. i think anglo-american will have to give something fairly sizeable in terms of concessions to the greens to attract them into that coalition but as you're saying you know the greens and the liberals they come at each other from opposite sides of the political spectrum so these will be very lively coalition talks and the senate democrats have said ok martin shows that leader we're going to be the big opposition party where does that leave the a.n.c. there the smaller opposition party what's going on but one of the reasons that the

that martin schultz and the social democrats have jumped going into the opposition is because it prevents the far right populist of the a.f.p. from being the leader of the opposition bear in mind when you lead the opposition in the german parliament you get to open you get you to all the first party that responds to the government in parliamentary debates so it's a very prominent position and you also traditionally get the head of the very powerful budget committee so to prevent all of that that is why. on one of the logics behind the the social democrats going into opposition so there's some little prizes that come along with being the opposition you get these certain responsibilities and if the as p.d. takes on this role the empty by default doesn't get it that's correct. having said that the f.t. will change the nature of political debate in the next parliament. they are going to be getting around ninety seats in the next poem and that is

a sizeable portion of the parliament many of the candidates that we believe are going to get seats come from the far right wing of the party and some of them are. openly racist some of them anti semites you've got hardline nationalists there revisionists conspiracy theorists so it's going to be they're going to break one to boo after another you're making them sound pretty bad but we just learned that like thirteen percent of voters chose this party why well it was largely a protest one of the statistics coming out this evening is that sixty percent of the voters voted for the a.f.p. not because they wanted that party in parliament but because they were disappointed with other parties so it is a protest vote. i think it is down to the chancellor merkel's open border policies letting in over a million refugees back in twenty fifteen here to germany that still divides the

country and there are still many people who are very angry about that decision that the chancellor merkel took who are worried for their security who believe however misguidedly that. refugees are bringing more crime into germany and that's what's behind that strong vote for the day after all those protest voters made their voices heard tonight the empty sent set to enter the national parliament for the very first time christopher spring it thanks for walking us through some of the specifics of german election you're welcome sir. i'm going to hand over now to my colleague gary hart al first he's got some very special guests with him get heard that's right. plenty to talk about with two young representatives of the two mainstream parties here and to my left here is i think a close a he's she's head of the wing of the social democrats use organization the usals and to my right is a stronghold a member of the state parliament of touring. the head of the youth organization of party c.d.u.

in that state stefan let's start with you what a slap in the face for your party second worst result in post-war history one million voters went from the cd you straight to the right wing populist area fifty what went wrong they get thank you for having me in the show. it's right if very. mixed feelings does evening because on the one hand we have a clear men to form the next government and the americal has to become has to become chancellor for her first term. on the other hand you said it we lost more than eight per cent and i am very concerned about the result of especially in my home state to ring you if you had an outcome with more than twenty per cent and now we have to analyze what was wrong i think we did our homework in the campaign you don't you yes we had a great grass would compare in thousands of young members of our party knocked more

than one million doors but i must admit a lot of voters from. too right wing agenda for germany and so that is a problem right you have to you on the record of course you have to the dark room of german politics and as you said twenty twenty five percent actually voted into rigger voted for the a.f.p. in your state so you haven't really done a good job of keeping the lights on in the dark room have you. i think the electorate of the if is different. you have water stay feel disappointed from the current government and on the other hand i think there are a lot of waters who refuses modernization of society day refuse me gratian and so there is no one answer it's difficult to manage this problem but i think the point is we have to solve their problems and that's the agenda for the next government and that's our challenge that's

a good point i think i can use you epic disaster for the social democrats as well worst result in post-war history story glow you right wing party in the bundestag you think that the s.p.d. has done enough. in the comparing well actually i'm very disappointed of course with the results and i'm also very angry at what happened tonight and would have to live last month i think that is the have a very good campaign actually but there were several points missing and one point was one that is election this isn't the time to present that there that i know i know well the problem is that we're in this camp election campaign we didn't really come to a point where we were discussing different part of us of what should happen to this country because i'm going to america and her c.d.u. they refused to take part in the discussions there was only one debate between march and shields and i'm glad to see you didn't really even present any ideas about what they want to change with this country they just thought that they're

conservative voters but go vote anyway yes and the others maybe get demobilized because there's no polarization at all but after all we find that's a city you lost almost ninety percent say of the of becoming very strong because the people are missing this polarization in the debate and well the s.p.d. didn't really get a chance to well brazenness and i didn't realize i mean if you look at the debate not just didn't really polarized that's true i think it was also a mistake that the other coalition options that would have been there the s.p.d. together with the left wing party and the greens that didn't really show that there was an option for his coalition the left wing party ends s.p.d. both of them didn't really come around to make it their project and to show that there's a different approach unity than anglo-american first of all that on the other hand i think the s.p.d. now really has to analyze what went wrong maybe we have to become again more radical on the left. all of the americans falls in the bomb

a star now i think is even ing its first of all it's a big defeat of the s.p.d. so i think it's not a question of what i did wrong but of course i think also we have to show in a better way what are the alternatives between our party and the s.p.d. i think that was did went wrong and it can pain and maybe now wants to go in opposition and then maybe we have to do chants and you next term. and if we think about the result of a i think the problem of the voters of the was they saw no difference between c.d.u. s.p.d. also no difference between greens and liberals and that's our problem and i think in the next term of the german bundestag we have to show what are the alternatives what are the differences differences between our parties that are very important

for democracy to mainstream parties to close together thank you very much on the close stuff i'm going to come to the studio today that it's back to sara and chris thank you gary hart i want to take another look now at some of the facts and figures that we have about this election it's just after eleven pm in berlin we have projected results and we want to share with our viewers something is about the voter turnout germany traditionally has quite high voter turnout let's see what happened in twenty seventeen. well you can see here on the wall voter turnout was about five percent higher than the last election last time seventy one point five percent of voters turned out in this year seventy five point nine percent almost seventy six percent of voters thought it was worth their time to cast a ballot we can also give you a look now at some of the breakdowns amongst the german population so this chart shows the breakdown in party support between the eastern part of germany and the

western part of germany and this is important because the east has historically been the poorer part of germany and you can see here support amongst the far right a.f.d. was much stronger in the east this time around than it was in the west the all their parties here are fairly similar across the board the big difference here is support for the four right we can also have a look at voter migration so now that the f.d.a. is entering germany's parliament well where did these voters come from. let's take a look bear with me here while we try and get this up on the wall for you now the f.d.a. took votes from the c.d.u. so miracles conservatives also from the s.p.d. from the left the greens and a very small from the pro-business f d p once talk a little bit more about the f.t. that swing in support to the f.t.

has been a huge triumph for the party their lead candidate alice vital had this to say about her party's performance. yeah mine veil of talk because the voters have given us. a mandate. we tend to take it on. the military millions of voters have voted for us they have given us their children saw fight for constructive opposition. and we will deliver on. and we also have charlotte pots and fanny for shar out in about for us both of them covering the a.f. days show up parties at the party headquarters funny on the streets near alexanderplatz where hundreds of demonstrators and police are gathering charlotte let's start with you they are day entering parliament for national parliament for

the very first time what's the feeling there. will be a of d.c.s. itself as a clear winner of this election on the one hand because even the most optimistic members had only counted on a on a written on an election result around eleven twelve percent and it looks like right now in the end result will be a little higher than that but on the other hand they are also seeing themselves as the winner because they attribute the fact that conservatives had to take that badly off the last they attribute the fact to their poncy to their anti-medical anti migrant campaign that they think was very successful in mobilizing voters in this election so the mood here is quite happy the leading candidate of the gallon has been trying to fire up his supporters saying we are going to take germany back and he has been saying they are going to pose quite

a radical opposition trying to hunt down. on the air. the hand we've seen also are the faces of the a and d. tonight more moderate saying they want to be a constructive opposition so really the big question here tonight was what kind of opposition do they want to be more radical more moderate more constructive how are they going to. be and paul human but in a matter of fact as they ran on a very nationalist right platform with slogans such as new germans we are going to make them ourselves and islam doesn't belong to germany and this is ca of d. that is making it into pali amende and this is probably how they are going to present themselves as an opposition there alright that's a feeling inside the party headquarters shall apos thank you funny for charice outside that building on the streets where people are demonstrating funny what's going on. on the emotions are running really high as you can hear behind

me and see beyond the fact that people are screaming that chanting that the entire city will go in hates berlin and of course if you look at the numbers as you know it was the case because also people here in berlin have voted for the alternative for june or party for the far right party a lot of people came here to demonstrate to say that they completely disagree with the fact that the far right party given the german history and to the german parliament you wonder what the mixture is of this crowd it's the next people from the green party but also from the left party you see a lot of younger people also some of them who didn't even go to cast their ballots but not here right now i mean the little people say maybe this is something positive about the entire situation that the far right party of the answer is the father but that is the people actually wake up and go to the street the demonstrate all right so there's a forty inside a day had quarters and a protest outside charlotte ponce and funny for char following that story for us

thanks to both of you. well let me ask you the whirling out a grand coalition one party that could play a role in germany's dax government is the greens they increased their role share almost nine percent but the party is cochairman jan it's tamir was circumspect about tonight's results jemison me or you've missed one of your goal is to become third strongest party but at the same time you were better than last time which was also a goal is that enough to have this good mood here but of course i'm happy about all relection result but at the same time after it makes it i'm very unhappy with the election result of the a fifty we're living in a divided country so that brings along responsibility for all of us to take over responsibility to deal with divided society and everybody means everybody that includes the social democrats i don't think this is the time to say that we don't talk everybody has to be ready to take over responsibility. coming back to your own party you already said you have to talk is this now

a moment where the other parties have to join forces and form this john mica coalition for the first time it depends on content suits the same what was said during the election campaign and nothing has changed we are to party on the election results proves me right that is fighting against climate change so we've got a clear policy for d. carbon ization i cannot enter a coalition second we're pro european that means no anti european policy we have the green party that's impossible for us and the first point is a just society so this is the framework and if we see movement towards our direction we're ready to take over responsibility and if not we're taking over our seats in opposition when was the last word to the f.t. you have already mentioned it what would be the strategy and what went wrong first of all that they got that strong and what's your strategy to deal with them now i think we have to deal with the problems there are problems with integration policy there are problems with islam islam but we have to do it in

a way that doesn't divide our society and it doesn't target people. i differ it's clear democrats have to stay together and i don't think we will get steve if the smaller we take over their language as some politicians have done that only strengthen step thank you very much. well if you've been with us for a while we've told you what the party is and the analysts and the pundits have to say about tonight's election results now we want to hear what the voters have been saying for more let's cross over to karl mass minute t w social media desk carl thanks for being with us what's the conversation like online. no i mean we're finding out you know one good way to take the pulse of the electorate is actually to look at what they're searching for on google what are the big questions we have here some of the top search queries on google after those exit polls were released and number one people want to know who voted for the a.f.d. they want to know those demographics of the far right voters or number two what

happens if there is no coalition it seems maybe a fair amount of people might be a little bit worried about that and number three what is this jamaica coalition that everyone keeps talking about of course first of the colors of the jamaica flag a black for the c.d.u. green for the greens and yellow for the f.t.p. in fact sarah there is so much interest in a potential to make a coalition that the only country in the world currently googling jamaica more is actually jamaica. german voters they're also analyzing the aftermath here and really you know s.p.d. voters they're not having a whole lot of fun and here's one who's addressing the party directly on twitter he says dear s.p.d. i hope you use this now for shift to the left that's where we come from and that's where we belong many other voters of course reacting to the rise of the a.f.d. tonight one here saying i've talked to my grandparents earlier who still cannot hear the word nazi without flinching and now i have to explain this and now the

hash tag eighty seven percent currently trending on twitter in germany and it's being used to let the world know that most voters here did not support the a.f.d. one voter here writes we must not react to the a.f.p. with fear but with more solidarity and togetherness o.s.b. voters and yes the eighty seven percent all trying to make sense of these results tonight all right voter sharing what's on their hearts and minds online carl last one thanks for breaking it down for us we're seeing more of you in the course of the evening by for now. we're almost out of time before we go let's take another look at the projected results based on vote counts right now it is eleven thirty just before eleven thirty here in central europe and here's what we've got miracle's conservatives there in black thirty two point nine percent the s.p.d. the center left party twenty point six percent there in red in pink you see the left party nine point one percent the greens the environmental party currently

polling at just under nine percent the f.d.p. ten and a half percent and the far right abdi as we heard coral and others say taking thirteen percent of the vote this evening other smaller fringe parties currently have just under five percent collectively they are not sent set to enter germany's bundestag so let's compare what's changed versus the last election four years ago here we've got some numbers for you can already see the conservatives are the big losers they have lost eight and a half percent the s.p.d. also lost just over five percent the left in the greens have both gained about half a percent but most of these voters have either gone for the f.d.p. they're up almost six percent or the a f d they've gained eight and three tenths of a percent over this time around four years ago when germany last held federal

elections we can take a quick look now at the seats that are going to be in parliament you can see that miracles conservatives there in black have the most seats but not enough to rule lomell need to form a coalition and that's something that we're going to be talking about throughout the course of the evening here on d w. so here's a quick recap of our headlines this hour german chancellor angela merkel is poised for a fourth term in office following parliamentary elections projections show were conservatives or the biggest party with around thirty three percent of the vote but they've suffered heavy losses the same goes for miracles current coalition partner of the social democrats looks at their worst showing post-war germany. you're watching database special election coverage coming in from berlin i'm sara harman here at the results us thanks for being with us we'll see you again at the top of the hour burn up day by for now.

election victory number four. until america remains germany's chancellor. her political career began in one nine hundred eighty nine when the berlin wall fell and unforeseen marks to power fall. from physicists to the most powerful woman

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