Sep 27, 2021, 12:30 PM

Centre-left SDP beat Merkel party in tightly fought election

TEHRAN, Sep. 27 (MNA) – Germany’s centre-left Social Democrats have narrowly beaten outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right Union bloc party in Sunday's national election, preliminary results show.

The Social Democrats’ candidate Olaf Scholz, the outgoing vice-chancellor and finance minister who pulled his party out of a years-long slump, said the result was “a very clear mandate to ensure now that we put together a good, pragmatic government for Germany.”

The closely fought race saw the Social Democrats edge out the Union bloc by 25.9% of the vote, ahead of 24.1% for the Union bloc. No winning party in a German national election had previously taken less than 31% of the vote and the result means a coalition will need to be formed, ITV reported..

Merkel will carry on in a caretaker role until a successor is sworn in.

The leader of the Social Democratic Party, Olaf Scholz, announced that he had got a mandate to form a new German government with the Greens and Free Democratic Party (FDP) after winning the federal election, Sputnik reported.

Scholz said that the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union bloc of Angela Merkel should go into opposition following the Sunday vote.

ZZ/PR

News ID 179121