German Elections: Huge Gains For Social Democrats

Germany’s center-left Social Democrats have won the biggest share in the general election on Sunday, beating Angela Merkel’s center Union bloc, preliminary results reveal.

Election officials said that Social Democrats (SDP) have won 25.9% of the vote, ahead of 24.1% for the Union bloc. The Green party, on the other hand, has ranked third with 14.8% followed by the pro-business Free Democrats with 11.4%.

The two parties have signaled that they are willing “to discuss forging a three-way alliance with either of their two bigger rivals to form a government.”

Though the Democrats and the Conservatives have governed together for years, Olaf Scholz, the leader of the SDP, said his party is looking forward to forming a coalition government with the Greens and liberals.

Mr. Scholz’s SPD supporters greeted him in raptures, but it was only later when his party edged into the lead that he told a televised audience the voters had given him the job of forming a “good, pragmatic government for Germany”.

Speaking on Monday, he said there were three parties that were on the up – his party, the Greens, and the liberals – and it was time for the conservatives to back down. “I think that the people in Germany want the Christian Democratic Union in opposition. This is their result now, what they decided during the election,” he said in English.

Merkel is expected to remain in power until a coalition government is formed. Yet, the main parties want a new chancellor in place by the time Germany takes over the leadership of the G7 group.

The future chancellor will have a lot of stuff to do, from leading Europe to solving pressing issues like climate change. On top of that, the would-be chancellor should give priority to Africa as well.

Though Merkel had put in place a strategy focused on Africa, it failed to solve the underlying causes for the continent’s instability. The future chancellor, hence, should develop a comprehensive strategy that seeks to tackle the ongoing social and political malaise in Africa. If Berlin fails to fight domestic instabilities in Africa, it’s fair to say that migration would remain a pressing issue to the European Union.