Olaf Scholz was dumped out of his role as German Chancellor unceremoniously as his center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) lost 86 seats in a contest that proved catastrophic for parties on the left of the political spectrum. Most notably, perhaps, the election saw the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) take second place, winning 20.8% of the overall vote—twice as good as their result in 2021—gaining 69 seats for a total of 152. This puts AfD just behind the election’s most successful party, the CDU/CSU alliance, who picked up 11 seats for a total of 208, a clear plurality that will pave the way for the party’s leader, Friedrich Merz, to become the new Chancellor of Germany.
In an election that saw the highest turnout since 1987, Germans cast two ballots: the first vote’, in which they select a candidate running in their district, and the ¨second vote¨, in which the electorate votes for a political party to represent their federal state. The latter of the votes is largely considered the more important of the two, as it determines the representation of Bundestag (the German Federal Parliament) seats between the various parties. In the end, it was Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance that came out on top, winning 28.5% of the second vote, nearly 8% more than the aforementioned AfD, which ended up in second, ahead of the previous ruling party, Scholz’s SPD, who could only muster 16.4% of the second vote. The German Green Party, commonly known as ‘The Greens’, also suffered a significant loss in seats—33 in all, leaving them with just 83, making them the Bundestag’s 4th most represented party. While center-left parties such as the SPD and The Greens struggled, the country’s left-wing party—known simply as ‘The Left’—put’ up an impressive showing, gaining 25 seats for a total of 64.
Alice Weidel, leader of Alternative for Germany (AfD), oversaw her party’s exceptional performance in the recent elections, making them the 2nd-most represented party in the German Parliament (Photo from Politico EU)
Despite poor performances from the SPD and The Greens, it was undoubtedly the center-right Free Democratic Party (FDP) who suffered the most as a result of the election—their second vote margin of 4.3% was not enough to see them past the country’s 5% clause, which saw them lose all 91 of their previously-held seats, leading to the resignation of their leader, Christian Lindner, the former Finance Minister, whose firing by Olaf Scholz in November 2024 collapsed the country’s ‘traffic light’ coalition, ushering in this round of elections.
Including the relative underperformance of the center-right CDU/CSU, who, despite winning the election outright, only gained 11 seats, it can be observed that this election was far more successful for parties on the peripheries of the political spectrum—AfD on the far-right and The Left on the left—as contrasted to those toward the center. This trend is well encapsulated, particularly among the left, by younger voters. The Left did best in the 18-24 age bracket, collecting 25% of the youth vote, a massive overperformance to the 8.8% they secured overall. AfD was the second-most popular party among 18-24-year-olds, collecting 21%, albeit only slightly above their total margin of 20.8%. AfD did best among 25-34 and 35-44-year-olds, performing better than any other party in those two categories, with 23% and 26%, respectively.
Results of the 2025 Bundestag Election by District (Infographic from The BBC)
While voter age was undoubtedly a key factor in the swing of the election, far more can be understood by a geographical analysis of the election’s results. As the map above indicates, AfD dominated in the country’s east—only broken up by pockets of support for the CDU-CSU and The Left around Berlin and in Leipzig—whereas the CDU/CSU had a tight grip over the country’s west and south, with the SPD retaining some strongholds across parts of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony.
Elon Musk addresses attendees at an AfD rally in January (Photo from France 24)
The election, however, was not without its controversies, particularly in the form of Elon Musk’s involvement with AfD in the buildup to voting day on 23 February. In December 2024, Musk—simultaneously the world’s richest man and now the most powerful unelected figure within the U.S. government—announced on his beleaguered social media platform ” X’—formerly known as Twitter—that “Only the AfD can save Germany,” posting similar messages at least eight times between that point and the election itself. Musk’s brazen declaration of support for a foreign election prompted heavy criticism in Germany, with the country’s Health Minister branding the endorsement as “undignified and highly problematic,” and the former German MEP Elmar Brok rubbishing the comment as “the world-domination fantasies of the American tech kings.”. Four weeks before the election, Musk appeared virtually at an AfD campaign event held in Halle and addressed the crowd, telling attendees that there is “too much focus on past guilt” within Germany and that “children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents.”. Elon’s appearance and inflammatory comments were particularly controversial in that they came less than a week after his speech at Donald Trump’s second inauguration, which he concluded with a highly-questionably gesture almost identical to that performed by European fascists, particularly Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party, who ruled Germany from 1933 until 1945 and were directly responsible for the Holocaust, in which roughly 6 million European Jews were persecuted and murdered.
Elon Musk’s gesture at Donald Trump’s second inauguration drew widespread backlash for its eerie similarity to the Fascist salute, infamously performed by the German Nazi Party (Photo from The Guardian)
Featured image: Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU/CSU, who is likely to become the next German Chancellor (photo from Reuters)
