German Chancellor Olaf Scholz attends a news conference at the Social Democratic Party (SPD) headquarters in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/)

- Election posters, showing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, and CDU top candidate Friedrich Merz, stand on a meadow in Nieder-Erlenbach near Frankfurt, Germany, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz waves to applause after giving a speech at a special party convention in Berlin, Germany, Jan. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/, File)

Germany faces its second change of leader in less than four years after the head of the center-right opposition won Sunday’s election.

Germany's mainstream conservatives have won the country's national election, while a far-right party surged to become the country's second-largest party.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has not ordered a state of emergency in Germany over the US’s bilateral peace negotiations with Russia, despite the claim spreading widely across social platforms. Users on X,

Projections show German opposition leader Friedrich Merz’s conservatives have won a lackluster victory in Sunday's national election.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz conceded defeat for his centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) after what he called “a bitter election result” on Sunday. Exit polls showed his party finishing in third place, taking just 16 per cent of the votes, with its worst postwar result in a national parliamentary election.

The German chancellor, who defied calls to step aside after his government fell apart, is down in the polls but insisting he can still win.

Friedrich Merz's CDU party emerged as the largest party in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, earning 28.6% of the vote.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A reform of Germany's constitutionally enshrined debt brake, which limits public borrowing, would be discussed by the leaders of the conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) in coalition talks, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday.