German center-left SPD beats conservative union CDU/CSU in general election: provisional results

BERLIN - Germany's center-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) won Sunday's general election with 25.7 percent of the votes, beating the conservative union CDU/CSU, according to the provisional election results released by the Federal Returning Officer early Monday morning.

The SDP's share of the votes surged by 5.2 percentage points from four years ago, while its main rival the conservative union of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party Christian Social Union (CSU) suffered heavy losses.

The provisional results showed the CDU/CSU union took only 24.1 percent of the vote in this year's parliamentary election, 8.9 percentage points lower as compared with that of last election. It marks the end of the dominant role of the conservatives ever led by incumbent Chancellor Angela Merkel for over a decade in the country's Bundestag, or the lower house of Parliament.

Olaf Scholz, SPD's chancellor candidate who is also incumbent vice-chancellor and finance minister, received long-time applause from his party members in SPD's headquarters in Berlin after the preliminary exit poll had projected the leading position of his party.

"I'm happy to see so many here and of course I'm happy about the election result ... Many citizens want that the next Chancellor is Olaf Scholz," he said.

Four years ago, it had taken over 170 days after the election until the new federal government was sworn in. Once again, tough negotiations for a coalition agreement are likely to happen since the provisional election results indicated a more fragmented parliament, in which parties have to scramble for alliances to cross the threshold of 50 percent of all seats.

Meanwhile, with Annalena Baerbock as chancellor candidate, the Green Party received 14.8 percent of votes in the election, making it the third-largest political faction in parliament, followed by the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the right-wing and Eurosceptic party Alternative for Germany with 11.5 percent and 10.3 percent respectively, according to the Federal Returning Officer.

Scoring 4.9 percent of the votes, the far-left Die Linke (Left Party) failed to pass the five-percent threshold to enter the parliament.

Various three-party coalitions, the "traffic-light" coalition between SPD, Greens and FDP, and the "Jamaica" alliance -- CDU/CSU, Greens and FDP, among others, are conceivable, as many observers predicted.

Armin Laschet, the CDU/CSU chancellor candidate and also minister-president of the North Rhine-Westphalia state, told a televised debate late Sunday that he wanted to get it done by Christmas, and Scholz echoed his main rival by saying that he wanted the negotiations on forming a new government to be speedy.

"My wish is to get over it quicker. It would be absurd to name a date. But it would be good if it were over by Christmas," Scholz said.

Around 60.4 million people are eligible to vote in Germany this year, and the country is divided into 299 electoral districts.

According to official statistics, voters' turnout of Sunday's general election stood at 76.6 percent, slightly higher than that of four years ago.