German Conservatives Seal Election, Seeking Coalition Talks

Merz Seals Victory in German Election, Seeks Coalition
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Germany’s conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz said he’ll move quickly to form a new government after he won Sunday’s federal election with a result that will require him to form a coalition.

Merz’s CDU/CSU bloc won 28.6% of the votes, followed by 20.8% for the far-right Alternative for Germany, according to the provisional vote count by the Federal Returning Officer. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats finished third with 16.4%, the party’s worst result since World War II.