Almost 47 million people voted in the German parliamentary election. It was the closest vote since 2002; the center-left Social Democrats beat the conservative Christian Democratic bloc for first place by about 1.8 million votes. Party leaders will need every ounce of their negotiating skill to form the next government. Imagine how the outcome could have been swayed if 6 million more votes — about as many as the third-place Greens got altogether — had been cast.
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Leonid Bershidsky: I couldn’t vote in Germany’s election
A giant election campaign banner featuring (L-R) former German chancellor Konrad Adenauer, former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, current German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and current chancellor candidate Armin Laschet hangs on the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) headquarters in Berlin on Sept. 24, 2021.
