Germany | Polls close in early federal elections - video Dailymotion

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In Germany, voting progresses in the early general elections. Our special envoy in Germany, Yunus Soner, provides us with the details. teleSUR

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00:00Let's now go live to Berlin with our special envoy, Yunus Uner, for all the details after

00:06the polls closed in Germany's early federal elections.

00:09Hello, Yunus.

00:10Welcome again to From the South.

00:13Hello, good afternoon, good evening, actually, from Berlin, capital of the Federal Republic

00:21of Germany.

00:22I'm right now in front of the federal headquarter of the Christian Democratic Union.

00:29The conservative party of Germany, the party of Helmut Kohl or Angela Merkel, which is

00:36leading the first preliminary results that have been published as of 7.30 local time

00:45here in Germany.

00:46According to that, the Christian Democratic Union comes to 28.8 percent, which is an up

00:54from 4.6 percent by 4.6 percent from the last elections in 2021.

01:02The second in the results is the far right-wing alternative for Germany, which has until now,

01:11according to these preliminary results, has achieved 20.2 percent, which is a gain of

01:179.8 percent in comparison to the last elections.

01:23The governing coalition of the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Liberals, which has been

01:31governing the country until December, but which crashed, because, remember, these are

01:36early elections.

01:37The normal elections were scheduled for September, but as the coalition collapsed, these were

01:43organized.

01:46So the coalition has lost all three members, they have lost a lot of votes.

01:50The Social Democrats have lost 9.5 percent and achieved 16.2 percent, according to the

01:59preliminary results that we have now.

02:02These are official count results.

02:04The Greens, the second member of the coalition, lost also 2.2 percent and achieved 12.7 percent,

02:14being the fourth party in the German parliament.

02:18And the third member of the coalition, the Liberals, they are even at 4.9 percent.

02:25That is an important detail I'll explain in a minute.

02:29The fifth force in the German parliament, according to these results, is the left party,

02:36which has gained 8.5 percent and up of 3.6 percent, according to the last, in comparison

02:44to the last elections.

02:46Now, it is clear that none of the parties has gained the majority, so there will be

02:51a coalition.

02:52And here comes the crucial thing.

02:54There is a limit, a threshold of 5 percent here in Germany to enter the parliament.

03:00You have less than 5 percent, you stay out.

03:03Liberals have 4.9 percent, 4.9 percent right now, as another party, the Sarawak Alliance,

03:14which has been established recently, has 4.8 percent.

03:19So these two parties coming together to 9.7 percent, they are right now out of the parliament.

03:27That affects the coalition-building efforts.

03:30If it stays like this, then mathematically a so-called grand coalition between the conservatives

03:38and the social democrats would be possible.

03:41The parliament has 613 members, so you need to have 316 members to have a majority.

03:51If it stays like this, the conservatives have 210 seats, with the social democrats having

03:58118, the both of them, 228, having majority.

04:05But if the two smaller parties pass the threshold of 5 percent, then the deputies that the two

04:14bigger parties gain in the parliament go down, and they won't have enough deputies to build

04:21a coalition on their own, having to rely on a third partner, which then could be the liberals

04:28or the Greens.

04:29Both the social democrats and the conservatives have signed off that they would be open to

04:35negotiate coalition agreements with these two actors, such as the Greens and the liberals.

04:44What is clear from these results are the governing coalition has suffered a huge defeat on all

04:53the lines, first result.

04:55Second result is the doubling of the votes of the far right in these elections from up

05:04to 20.2 percent, according to the current results.

05:08And the third open result is that there will be a certain instability because the coalition

05:16remains unclear.

05:19It might be a three-party coalition, which is more prone to unstable political landscape,

05:26but that remains to be seen.

05:27We have to wait for that, for the final official results.

05:31For the time being, some sources even see these two minor parties at 5.0 percent.

05:39So it is still an open race, and that is the reason why the conservatives here did celebrate

05:47their lead in the results until now.

05:50But they are also worried about with whom they will have to make a coalition.

05:56At that point, everyone has stated that none of the parties is willing to cooperate or

06:02make a coalition with the extreme right, a thing that, remember, even the U.S. Vice President

06:09J.D. Vance had proposed in the Munich Security Conference.

06:13But this is until now rejected by all the parties which consider the alternative for

06:19Germany as being outside of the democratic system.

06:23But all eyes are now on the two smaller parties and whether they will pass the 5 percent threshold

06:30or not.

Germany | Polls close in early federal elections

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