Victory move: Friedrich Merz with supporters at the party headquarters in Berlin on Sunday, after the national election.
| Photo Credit: MARTIN MEISSNER
The February 23 parliamentary poll in Germany produced several outcomes, the prominent being a highly fractured verdict.
No single political formation’s vote share crossed the 30% mark, though the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)-Christian Social Union (CSU) emerged as the single largest group with a combined vote share of 28.6% (The CSU is an affiliate of the CDU in the federal State of Bavaria).
The group’s sway over Germans is no longer formidable. As recently as 2013, the coalition had a vote share of 41.5%. In the last two elections, the CDU-CSU had struggled to secure support from one-third of the total voters, even as in 2025, it regained its ground considerably compared to its heavy loss four years ago.
As seen in Table 1, the latest election confirmed the emergence of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as one of the principal parties. In the process, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which ruled for the last four years along with the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens, has been dislodged from its traditional position of being a principal political organisation. It has been relegated to the third slot with the worst-ever performance of 16.4% since 1990 (when East Germany merged itself with West).
Table 1 | How major parties in Germany fared in the 2021 and 2025 parliamentary polls (Only second votes considered)
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The AfD, which stormed German politics in 2017 with 12.6% vote share, bounced back in the latest election with greater strength after it suffered a slight erosion of base four years ago. Its gain of 10.4 percentage points this time is the highest in a single election for any major party in the last 45 years.
The nearest gain was 7.7 percentage points registered by the CDU-CSU in 2013. The AfD’s recent performance coincides with the growing popular mood for stricter asylum policies, an issue that divides Germany’s political parties sharply.
Table 2 | Vote share in % and change in vote share (in brackets and in % points) in East Germany (Only second votes considered)
As evident in Table 2, the AfD was well ahead of the CDU (Map 4) in all the five federal States of the eastern part of the country. It secured about 36% of votes polled in the region (Map 5).
Table 3 | Vote share in % and change in vote share (in brackets and in % points) in West Germany (Only second votes considered)
Except in Brandenburg, the difference between the two was at least 15 percentage points. Eight years ago, when the poll was held amid an intense debate over the then Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s doors to one million refugees, the latter was comfortably ahead of the far-right party in all but Saxony where the AfD had an extremely narrow lead over the CDU.
In an article, Deutsche Welle says that in Thuringia, home to Björn Höcke, who was convicted for using banned Nazi slogans, the party received over 38% of the vote, double the number of votes for the CDU.
The AfD’s rise is not just confined to the east. It is closely behind the CDU in the western States such as Bremen, Berlin and Saarland [where the party’s vote base is more than 20%], as observed in Table 3.
Maps 4 and 5 | The maps show the vote share secured by CDU/CSU and AfD in 2025 elections
There are two more takeaways from the election. The marginalisation of the FDP, whose exit from the ruling SPD-Greens coalition government in November led to the poll, appeared grim. The Free Democrats suffered the ignominy of going without any representation in the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament, once again, the earlier time being during 2013-17.
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Another surprise element was the “political resurrection” of the Left, which was written off by many observers. Despite suffering a split about a year ago, the Left had almost doubled its vote base to 8.8%. Founded in January 2024, the breakaway group, Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW – Alliance for Reason and Justice) narrowly missed making it to Bundestag as it secured 4.9% only, marginally lower than the threshold of 5%.
Also read:The rise of the far-right in Europe and its ramifications: Data
Published – March 12, 2025 07:00 am IST
