Germany’s center-left Social Democrats on Sunday narrowly won their first national election since 2005, ending 16 years of conservative-led rule under Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to preliminary election results.
According to data published by Germany’s federal election commissioner on Monday morning, Social Democrats (SPD) won 25.7 percent of the vote, ahead of 24.1 percent for Merkel’s CDU/CSU conservative bloc. The Greens came in at 14.8 percent—their best ever result—and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) were on 11.5 percent.
