Germany on the eve of elections - without a clear favorite to form a government on their own

Germans will elect 630 members of the new Bundestag tomorrow, and the latest pre-election polls show that the opposition Christian Democrats and the far-right, also opposition Alternative for Germany (AfD) continue to enjoy the greatest support, but that no party will have enough members of parliament to form a government on its own.

Four candidates are vying for the position of new German leader: current Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Friedrich Merz, the candidate of the main conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), current Vice Chancellor Robert Habek of the environmental Green Party, and Alice Weidel of the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD).

According to a poll by the Yougov public opinion research institute, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its leader and candidate for chancellor Friedrich Merz can count on 29 percent of the vote, which is two percentage points more than at the beginning of this week.

German analysts estimate that the future ruling coalition will likely be centered around the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, and that at least two parties will have to participate in it, indicating uncertain coalition negotiations.

According to the Jugava poll, the AfD's rating remained unchanged at 20 percent support, which supports its ambitions to come second in the election in terms of the number of votes won.

The currently ruling Social Democratic SPD of Chancellor Olaf Scholz has lost one percentage point since the beginning of the week and is now at 16 percent, while its partner in the three-party coalition until recently, the Greens, have the support of 13 percent of voters.

The Left Party, the successor to the former East German Socialist Unity Party (SED), has seen its popularity soar in recent weeks. According to polls, the party has the support of eight percent of voters and can almost certainly count on entering parliament.

According to the Jugava projection, such results would mean that the Christian Democrats would have 220 MPs in parliament, the AfD 145 MPs, the SPD 115, the Greens 94, the Left 55, and "others" one MP.

Polls, however, also show that just three days before the election, a large number of voters, between 20 and 27 percent, were undecided.

Polls will be open from 18 a.m. to XNUMX p.m., and Germans can also vote by mail.

Exit polls will be released immediately after voting closes, and vote counting will begin immediately. The overall picture of the results will be known very soon, with the final official result expected early Monday.

There are 59,2 million voters in Germany itself who are eligible to vote, as well as more than three million German citizens abroad, for whom this year's voting will be more problematic than usual due to the short deadlines.

There are 29 parties on the ballot, but it is expected that between five and eight of them will manage to cross the five percent electoral threshold.

The elections are characterized by significant demographic shifts. In the 2021 elections, 61,2 million people in Germany alone were eligible to vote.

In the current electorate, more than 40 percent of citizens are over the age of sixty, and one quarter are over 70.

Those under 30 make up only 13,3 percent of the electorate. There are 2,3 million young people who can vote for the first time, or about four percent.

The elections in Germany are being held seven months earlier than planned, as Scholz's three-party coalition collapsed in November due to disagreements over how to revive the economy, which has been in decline for two years.