BERLIN — The EU’s most populous country is heading to the polls on Feb. 23 to elect a new parliament. The vote will almost certainly trigger a change in national leadership, with Friedrich Merz’s conservatives in pole position to lead the next government.
The chief significance of the election is that it will determine how sharply the world’s third-largest economy veers to the right. (The campaign has been characterized by fierce exchanges over restricting migration.) Merz also looks set to prioritize Germany’s traditional industrial strengths over climate-change policies.
While the Christian Democrat camp is comfortably leading in the polls, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is expected to finish a strong second — a prospect that is not only shaking up the race but also stirring heated debate over the country’s postwar identity.
Merz has sought not only to siphon off AfD votes to bolster his party, but even — more controversially — to push through tougher migration rules with support from the AfD, thereby undermining a long-established Brandmauer, or firewall, that prevented co-operation by mainstream parties with the far right.
Here’s a rundown of what has happened so far and what to keep an eye on before, during and after the vote:
Why is the far-right firewall so important?
In the wake of a deadly knife attack last month in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg, allegedly perpetrated by an Afghan refugee who should already have left the country, Merz vowed to lead a major crackdown on irregular migration.
During a Bundestag session in January, his conservatives — for the first time since World War II — pushed through parliamentary proposals to restrict migration with support from the AfD. It was a stunning moment for those who believed Merz would never break the talismanic postwar taboo.
Merz appears to have gambled that by acting tough on migration, his conservatives could claw back voters from the AfD in the final weeks of the campaign. Some of the most recent polls, however, have suggested the strategy did not pay off: The conservatives lost 2.9 percentage points in a survey aggregate published last Friday, while the AfD gained the same amount.
Since the parliamentary vote, Merz has vowed not to cooperate with the AfD after the election and instead to seek to diminish the radical party.
“We want to do everything we can, especially in this election campaign, to make this party as small as possible again,” he said at a CDU convention in early February. “There’ll be no cooperation, no acquiescence, no minority government.”
His opponents, however, say his credibility is shot.
And although it’s highly unlikely the AfD will win power, the party is already on track for its strongest-ever national election outcome as it grows increasingly normalized.
That mainstreaming has been helped by international heavyweights such as U.S. billionaire Elon Musk and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who have endorsed the party and paraded their shared political platforms with party leader Alice Weidel.
The nuts and bolts
Germany holds parliamentary elections every four years; the next one was originally scheduled for September 2025. Germans now head to the polls ahead of schedule, however, following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition late last year.
Some 630 parliamentary seats are up for grabs, to be distributed proportionally. Parties need to secure at least five percent of the vote to enter the Bundestag.
Each voter gets two votes: One is cast for their local representative, and the other for a party. In most cases, candidates who win their district get a seat. But the overall share of seats that parties gain in parliament is determined by the percentage of second votes they win, so this is the number most widely reported on election night. The parties fill up the seats they win through second votes based on regional candidate lists.
On election night, the first exit poll is expected at 6 p.m., with initial results coming half an hour later. These tend to give a good idea of the winners and losers, while the final results and the exact distribution of parliamentary seats are usually determined overnight.
What do the polls say?
Merz’s conservative alliance — which consists of his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) — is set to win by a solid margin, and is currently polling at 30 percent.
The AfD is expected to finish second with 22 percent, which would be the party’s best score in a national vote and more than double its result in the 2021 election.
The Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens — both seen as possible junior coalition partners to the conservatives — are polling in third and fourth place on 17 percent and 13 percent respectively.
The liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), The Left, and the leftist-populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), meanwhile, are all struggling to make it into parliament while polling around the 5 percent threshold for representation.
What happens afterwards?
While Merz’s conservatives seem well positioned to win the election, that’s just the beginning of the the story. The next question is what the coalition will look like.
Politicians from Merz’s party say their least-favored outcome is a three-way coalition, given the infighting that would inevitably follow, and say they would prefer a coalition with either the Greens or the SPD. Such an option would significantly strengthen the negotiating position of the conservatives.
But a three-party alliance could be hard to avoid if some of the smaller parties currently in the parliament ― the FDP, The Left and BSW ― again win seats.
If none of the smaller parties clear the 5 percent hurdle for winning seats in the Bundestag, around 40 percent of the vote could be enough to control a majority of seats in the parliament (316). But if, conversely, two of the smaller parties re-enter parliament, some 46 percent of the vote will be needed for a majority, significantly decreasing the likelihood of a two-party alliance. More on coalition possibilities here.
I’m not German. Why should I care?
What happens in Berlin doesn’t stay in Berlin, but tends to ripple around Europe and the world.
A very close-run final result — with the AfD on the heels on the Christian Democrats — would deliver a major signal, given Germany’s history, and would stoke the political momentum of right-wing forces across the continent.
In terms of European diplomacy, Merz has pledged to take a lead role in uniting the continent in its response to U.S. President Donald Trump. He has said he’ll travel to Paris and Warsaw, uniting the so-called Weimar trio, on his first day in office to smooth Germany’s relationship with its most important neighbors.
But Merz also promised German voters he would tackle irregular migration by pushing people back at the country’s borders — which would affect the same neighbors he wants to befriend, while calling into question the EU’s long-negotiated asylum reform.
While Germany, under Scholz’s leadership, has been among Ukraine’s strongest supporters in terms of military aid, second only to the U.S., the incumbent chancellor has often been criticized for acting too hesitantly (an image he has embraced, and which led him to campaign on his “prudent” approach). In the same spirit, Scholz has consistently vetoed sending long-range cruise missiles such as the Taurus to Kyiv.
By contrast, Merz’s conservatives have long demanded the Taurus missiles be delivered and say they would have taken a harder approach to the Ukraine war than Scholz did.
“When this war started, I would not have thought that it would last three years. I believe it could have ended earlier if Ukraine had been helped more courageously and less hesitantly,” Merz said during a speech on foreign policy.
How to watch the German election like a pro
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