Friedrich Merz is set to become Germany’s next chancellor, but he has a long road ahead of him to form government and hold onto power.
Merz heads up the CDU/CSU, a centre-right political alliance between his party, the Christian Democratic Union, and its sister party, the Christian Social Union.
The CDU/CSU took first place in Sunday’s election with 28.5 per cent of the vote, but did not earn enough seats in parliament to form a majority. To do that, it will need to form a coalition with another party.
That doesn’t leave Merz with many options. His party has ruled out any collaboration with the second-place winners, far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which won 20.8 per cent of the vote, its best result yet, according to provisional results.
Instead, he has reached out to the third-place, centre-left Social Democratic Party — which was governing in a coalition until late last year — in the hopes of forming a centrist …