SPD

And it could happen that the center-left party forms a coalition with the center-right party and your vote goes in a completely different direction than you wanted, as will likely happen for a lot of SPD voters in Germany now.

The AfD will be represented in the Bundestag, but it won’t be represented in the government, which will likely be a coalition of the CDU, which had the strongest showing, together with SPD.

On a national level, the worst-case scenario would be for a breakdown in a Merz-led coalition: "Merz could make mistakes. If he gets really tough on immigration, it might become problematic with the SPD."

Meanwhile, outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz's SPD had its worst performance in decades, only securing 16.4% of the vote.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, leader of the SPD, said the election results were "bitter" for his party and a "defeat".