Aidan Regan: Diversity of German politics and culture reflected in post-Merkel politics

Germany’s centre-left Social Democrats won last Sunday’s election, but the vote also revealed that Germany is now firmly a multi-party federal state, where collaboration among parties will be vital

Franziska Giffey, co-leader of the German Social Democratic, Olaf Scholz, the SPD Party's candidate for chancellor, and Manuela Schwesig, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's state premier. Picture: Christof Stache/Getty

The headline takeaway from last Sunday’s election in Germany is that the centre-left Social Democrats won. They emerged as the biggest party with 25.7 per cent of the vote.

This is only the fourth time in German history that the Social Democrats (SPD) have finished ahead of the conservative centre-right, the Union of CDU/CSU, who had their worst election ever, taking 24.1 per cent of the vote.

Relative to the 2017 election, and contrary to ...