Merz’s centre-right CDU leads in Germany’s federal elections, exit polls show

Germany's top opposition leader Friedrich Merz is set to become the country's next leader after exit polls in the federal election held Sunday show his centre-right CDU party unassailably in front.

Vote counting is under way in the country after tens of millions of voters cast their ballots in the key election said to be decisive for the future of Europe's biggest economy and largest EU member state.

Official and final results of the vote have not been announced. However, current exit polls show opposition leader Friedrich Merz leading in the national election and set to become Germany's next chancellor.

Merz is expected to get around 28.5% of the votes, which will make his CDU party the strongest in the next Bundestag.

Merz, in his first reaction after the vote, said his now almost certain election win shows Germany is "present in Europe again" and will be reliably governed.

Current exit polls also indicate that the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is heading for the strongest showing for a far-right party since World War II.

Speaking on Sunday evening after the polls, co-leader and chancellor candidate Alice Weidel said that her party “has become the second-strongest force” in the country.

Weidel said the AfD was “open for coalition negotiations” with Merz’s party and that “otherwise, no change of policy is possible in Germany”.

Meanwhile, incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and his coalition are on track for their worst postwar result in a national parliamentary election. According to first exit polls, they are expected to finish in third place with 16.5%.

Scholz has already conceded defeat after what he called “a bitter election result”.

The result leaves the 66-year-old Scholz on the way out as Germany’s chancellor, a position he has occupied since December 2021.

Over 59 million German voters were eligible for Sunday's high-stakes election to choose the 630 members of the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, who will sit in the glass dome of the historic Reichstag building in Berlin.