this is today every news coming to wind from berlin on the american wins a fourth term as germany's chancellor but voters also dealt a blow to the country's main parties. 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 that's a positive spin despite heavy losses for her party but she wasn't the only leader left looking shape that should be shot it is for the buckeyes i have recommended to the s.p.d. leadership that we go into the opposition. miracles main challenger marching shoals constraints defeat after a projected results indicate the worst ever showing for his central left social democrats. plus a triumph for the upstarts and german politics the far right alternative for germany. we have been given an electoral mandate and we will accept this electoral mandate which humility because millions of voters have given us their trust. more on that and all and so nice results with analysis here in the studio from our correspondents around the world.

i'm sara harmon welcome to do w. special coverage of the german election i'm going merkel has won a fourth term as chancellor but it has been a bruising night for the country's main parties that's true for miracles conservatives and also for the social democrats for center left coalition partners in the current government now both parties say they're going to have to work to win back waters. the election night began on a high at c.d.u. headquarters then the realize ation a shift in the political center ground unfolding before them heralding an end to the country's grand coalition. only merkel could left the mood but let you could hide the fact this is her worst result as leader down but not out she's bracing

for a historic for terror mr chancellor. in that release but naturally we had hoped for a slightly better result that's totally clear. the c.d.u. and c.s.u. are the strongest parties we have a mandate to form a government and no other government can be formed against us. our challenge our martin schulz knows that too well his disappointment head in behind a white smile. though a heavy weight of european politics he was a newcomer to the german scene when he joined the race in january after an initial spike in the polls the s.p.d. has struggled to gain ground on their biggest opponents. he called time on the partnership with the cd. he sent us here and i want to be clear

i started this race to replace the chancellor that's also why i didn't join this current cabinet as a minister therefore i believe it is consistent and right and that's why i have recommended to the social democratic leadership that we join the opposition. out of power and out of favor s.p.d. leaders hope that by ruling out more coalition and offering strong opposition they may yet hold their beleaguered party's decline. so big losses for germany still biggest leading party meanwhile the far right are the ones where as a style the now take a detailed look at the numbers so far. this graph will give you a result of where things stand right now these are projected results based on the data as we have it not a final result but right now we can see that the c.d.u. c.s.u. that's miracle's conservatives have thirty three percent of the vote the s.p.d. the center left party of martine scholtz twenty point four percent left party

polling at nine point one percent you see that figure in pink the greens have nine percent the pro-business liberal f.d.p. have ten point seven percent and of course the a.f. d. coming in with thirteen percent of the vote quite a game only other parties combined have about five percent right now so as resell the far right is on track to be the third largest party in parliament tonight's result mean they'll enter the federal legislature for the very first time this after having been a magnet for controversy here in germany with their deliberately provocative campaign let's take a closer look now at the leaders and what the party stands for. f.t. election posters leave little to the imagination new germans will make those ourselves read this one purpose as this slogan we're into bikini's if there were

any doubts about the alternative on offer it's islamophobia and anti immigrant stop islamification vote f.t. reads this post or i suppose a threat posed by islam in migrants has been a key campaign message for the candidates. politicked often an open borders the indiscriminate admission of people from other religions and cultures poses a grave threat to my civil liberties to the civil liberties of homosexuals and above all to the civil liberties of our still free society films are not fired as aircraft pilots vital is an economist who lives with a lesbian partner a swiss woman of sri lankan origin together they've adopted two children although i have to the policy clearly states that a family needs a mother and a father vital even criticised the german government for introducing same sex marriage a running mate alexander garland is a founding f.t. member he's drawn condemnation for racist statements about what tank

a black soccer player who helped clinch the twenty fourteen world cup for germany people think he's a good footballer gowan said last year but they don't want to what tang as a neighbor. the a.s.d. hasn't always been a far right populist party and you come out to the german political scene it was founded just four years ago back then it was a single issue set up campaigning against the euro and germany's contribution to the e.u. bailout fund for greece it's almost got elected to the bundestag in twenty thirteen it ended up just shy of the five percent needed. but the f.t.c. electoral fortunes changed when chancellor merkel declared germany's borders open at the height of the migration crisis. the party has transformed itself out an incredible speed into a right wing extremist party with nationalist elements so in that respect it's a challenge for all democrats for the fall of democrat. wherever merkel went during

the campaign she was booed by f.t. hecklers with a party in the bundestag should be facing vocal far right opponents from the opposition benches. has got thirteen percent of her always germans who are voting for them well we can tell you now. if we take a look at the numbers for the a.f.d. which are coming up here on this wall behind me you can see that roughly a million votes came from people who used to support the conservatives americal gave up a million votes to the a.f.d. this time around half a million came from former s.p.d. supporters almost as many from the left party and smaller numbers roughly forty to fifty thousand for both the greens and the f.t.p. so it bears repeating this idea that the conservatives are bleeding support to the f.t. is borne out by the numbers that we're seeing right now we can also take

a look at which part of germany is most supportive of the after because the trend here is really interesting here in the eastern part of germany the a.f.d. has a lot more support than it does in the considerably wealthier west or the considerably wealthier south east germany appears to be a stronghold for the a.f.g. right now and we can also take a look at the east west split if you look at the a s d. you can see down here in the eastern part of germany they had twenty one point two percent in the west just half that number about ten percent the a.f.d. much stronger in the east of germany then in the west so what does all this mean let's talk to our analyst from the parliamentary studios christopher spring great great to have you here we're looking at your back earlier in that shot we get to have a very lovely about your face yes not as nice as your face the jury's parliamentary

landscape is changing what does this mean well i think i'm going to give you three takeaways from this election thank you so far first of all chancellor merkel is paying the political price for a decision back in twenty fifteen to open germany's borders and letting. in the end over a million refugees into the country the she received a lot of the plane to mystically and abroad for that decision some people are calling it historic but there are also many many people who are angry about the decision. the country germany remains divided over whether that was the right way to approach to approach the migration prices so that's the first takeaway the second takeaway is that as a result of that decision we now have for the first time in decades a. nationalist a hardline nationalist party in the german parliament the alternative for germany

the populist right wing alternative for germany with very strong far right elements of the third takeaway is quite simply that the social democrats one of you know germany's oldest party is facing probably gives in the wilderness now years in the wilderness why are they doing so badly this was traditionally one of germany's strongest parties that's right essentially the campaign that they conducted was backward looking they focused on social inequality that's a classic issue for social democracy. in this country but something that really is only going to mobilize about ten fifteen percent of the electorate martin schulze the lead candidate just wasn't able to put forward a convincing vision of how he would solve the problems of the future and they also have a long term problem back in the year two thousand and thirty seven percent of the german electorate were blue collar workers traditional social democrat voters today that proportion is just nineteen percent which is roughly what they got in this

election so in a sense their traditional. support base is vanishing regional support base is vanishing and these newcomers the a.f.d. have garnered a lot of support from other parties all that in a graphic just a minute ago what effect are they going to have in parliament they will almost certainly change the the nature of debate in germany's parliament the tone of debate it will be more fractious it will be more polarized most of the a.f. the candidates who are winning seats in the german parliament are from the far right wing of the party. a colleague of mine just they were calling them the crazies so you've got you've got racists you've got anti semites you've caught hard line nationalists conspiracy theorists they're all going to be sitting in the german parliament they will be breaking pretty much every two left right and center the silver lining by the way to all this is that this will force the mainstream

parties to work much harder to win the argument and solve people's problems are it sounds like things are about to get very interesting indeed christopher spring day thanks for your analysis you're welcome. well as we inch into monday morning it's time to talk coalitions and for that let's go over to gary hard thank you very much sarah while chancellor angela merkel has already ruled out working with this vital and her f.t. party that leaves only. one sensible option but brain together the chancellor is most likely partners looks to be challenging and that's putting it mildly. business business business that's what the free democrats are all about but they are also staunchly pro european union and are now back in the parliament after four years of absence of foreign and foreign dear friends with the alternative for germany becoming the third strongest party that will fight against the european

union and openly supports nationalist ideology to f.t.p. the liberal rule of law party with a european spirit will be the clearest opponent to the day. the greens traditionally cater to well educated urbanites they're the other likely candidate for the governing coalition given the are not it was extra we will accept the invitation to talk but we stick to our opinion we want to change this country we are not in politics in order to have power. and we are in politics because we want to change something we can't have a government without any ideas about how to deal with climate protection every other option just won't work with the green party. the question of the hour is what will work for all the possible coalition partners the business focus as d.p. are likely to struggle to find common ground with the greens pro environmental platform german chancellor angela merkel would have an easier time with one partner

like the far right alternative for germany but that's a move markel and every other german party has rolled out and the day for its part has ramped up there were torkel attacks on the chancellor. and as we are clearly the third strongest party the german government whichever way it is formed should dress warmly the over here then says we will hunt them. we will hunt mrs merkel or whoever. and we will take back our country and our people again. promises like this only underscore the importance of the coming coalition talks. well i know america will also have to dress warmly for the coalition talk with me in the studio stark i will show you political scientist. university able to talk about coalitions not our coalition so it's

always difficult but these seem to be next to impossible with actually four parties involved other differences differences going to prove too big as a couple of people have said today it's a long way to jamaica but i think this is going to be the coalition that will see governing germany and everything that you've heard in seen today by the party leaders and a lot of people really point in the direction that they want to form a government together and this is what they're on track to do ok but the digit make a coalition the c.d.o. c.s.u. the greens and the the f.t.p. one of the key people there is of course the green party cochairman we spoke to him earlier today let's just listen in to what ten minutes to me said earlier tonight. jemison mia 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 our

election 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 debt 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 my coalition for the first time it depends on content it's the same what was said during the election campaign and nothing has changed we are to party and the election results proves me right that is fighting against climate change so without a clear policy for de carbon ization i cannot enter a coalition second we're pro european that means no anti european policy with 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 problem so 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 and therefore it's clear democrats have to stay together and i don't think we will get stiff the smaller if we take over their language as some politicians have done that only strengthens them thank you very much. it's to me that cochairman of the green party already the setting out what he is able to do and what not a bit it's still he sounds very adamant that certain things will not work with him

so obviously getting the greens into the coalition is going to be the challenge of the negotiations with the c.d.u. and the f.d.p. we know they want to govern so they will be keen on getting this together they've done it to done it before it done it together before and also their their party consciousness is really about governing well the greens this is going to be a bigger challenge but on the one and we've really seen the way the greens have compassion has been to focus on environmental issues to really focus on their needs and if they come out of the negotiations with a concrete policy that they for example the end of the combustion engine then it might be really easier at least to sell this coalition to their supporters. it looks like in these talks the c.d.u. will add up the julia poppy just to get the support from the greens and the liberal again i don't think we should underestimate i know america they are the strongest party that they do have they don't have a lot of options but in the end both the greens and the f.t.p.

will want to govern the green haven't been in government since two thousand and five and also the f.t.p. really wants it so angela merkel will play her cards well i suppose and we will end up with this government in the end well if not already does not have any other option really. what if the talks fail so she can threaten to have a new elections with which no one involved will one because this will likely strengthen the even further we should reduce turn our for the center parties and she might argue then she has actually the upper hand in the come upcoming election because she can argue i am the only one who can form a stable government so this is a threat that she has. you don't see any chance of in thai seeing. they the social democrats back out of a position i think they're very clearly rule it out and it is very much in their self-interest to not be in another grand coalition so i don't see the democrats

really really joining any government the final option could be a minority government but again until america doesn't seem in any way two to one to have a minority government in the end you know the first time it was shoddy thank you very much for this analysis back to sour with a quick look at how the german elections went down across the atlantic south that's right there who are joining us now is our washington correspondent carson. carson good to have you with us we know the u.s. president has been busy wrapped up in a conflict with the national football league has there been any official u.s. reaction toward the german election. not really no tweet yet from donald trump at least not on the german election no official statement from the white house on the state department the american foreign ministry of course there have been a few reactions we have to say senator john mccain

a foreign policy expert for instance. congratulated. with the tweets and praise the german american relationship the alliance as very important for both countries we've also had a reaction from the world jewish council president mr law has praised as a true friend of israel and the jewish people and at the same time set the f.t. was disgraceful and reminded him of doc days and german history but that's about it basically of course the media have reported on the issue on the results of the german election they have focused of course first of all on the fact that i'm going to remain chancellor the f.t. is another big topic and at least in the papers the policy by politics buffs might read the question what is a jamaica coalition because of course in america with

a presidential system a two party system defect a two party system the idea that i'm going to america has to deal with a number of parties to form a government is a bit strange and puzzling but basically once again that's not the main issue people are focusing the fact that under the macro remain chance of them another thing that's kind of puzzling to americans the fact that merkel is going to be a four term chancellor now how do you think u.s. german relations are going to look in the years to come. well it's pretty much the expectation that there will be business as usual to a certain extent even donald trump an american who have very different personalities have been trying over the past few months to establish some kind of working relationship and on the working level when you look at the secretaries and you look at the heads of departments in both governments they really have been trying to work together everybody tells us how important german american relations

are and so the expectation is that until america with whatever government will ever coalition she will form things will continue to be pragmatic and the relations will be strong ok you mentioned that the fact that the f.d.a. is now entering parliament for the first time and something that's also being discussed in the u.s. do you think that's going to inspire the far right in the u.s. . it could be and of cause. members of the far right the populist movement have in the past pointed out that germany and they have you had a big problem with immigration and these people might think that the f.t. victory is a sign of that but interesting the even bright news the populist right wing platform run by steve benen the former trumps chief strategist has so far reported

on the election in germany in a very matter of fact and sober way there have been no end of medical articles or anything like that at least not so far quite clearly everybody here as you mentioned at the beginning is focusing on the battle between donald trump and sports stars from the end of the american football league and also the n.b.a. the national basketball association so basically that is the big topic here not the election in germany all right thanks for sharing the view on the german election from your perch in washington that's our correspondent carson always good to see you quick reminder of our headline this hour german chancellor angela merkel is poised for a fourth term in office following parliamentary elections here projections show her conservatives as the biggest party at around thirty three percent of the vote but they have to suffer having losses and the same goes for mantles current coalition partner of the social democrats who looks at their worst showing host for germany.

the right wing alternative for germany has made history by entering the bonus song projections show the party is the third largest in the new german parliament the f.t.'s leave candidate alice vital says her corey will seek a parliamentary investigation into what she called legal breaches made by medical with her open door refugee policy back in twenty fifteen. you're watching special coverage of the german election there's more coming up at the top of the hour and don't forget you can always find the latest on the election on our web site that's dot com i'll leave you now with the winners and the losers of germany's big night.

that i said was. i'm was. i am who. i am thank. god. i'm.

election victory number four. until america remains germany's chancellor. her political career began in one thousand nine hundred nine when the berlin wall

fell and unforeseen was to power fallen. from physicists to the most powerful woman in the world until america a fortress. in sixty minutes. stories that move people of the world over d w on facebook and twitter update and in touch . follow us. i. am really from a journey of somebody to look up was. the best in the world an international brand. a shared passion. f.c. byron munich to truly understand all need is three words.

for. me as some young. men yes tell me your own secret you can't touch us are lying in the sun by an exclusive journey into the songs of my own munich. is a new york it's a kind of culture war we are who we are in accept us for what we are we're at family unbelievable. to me a son mia phenomenon starting october fifteenth on d w. i'm going to america gets a fourth term as chancellor but she is a wounded leader and she'll have to contend with the far right party in the new parliament right here in berlin this all makes germany something that it hasn't been in more than a generation predictable tonight the world's first reactions

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