Over 60 million Germans vote to define who will succeed Angela Merkel | He will leave the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after 16 years in office

More than 60 million Germans are eligible to take part in the elections this Sunday. The Social Democrats and the Conservatives are fighting over the succession of Angela Merkel, who will leave the chancellery after 16 years.

Investigations and adjusted results

The polls predict a very close result with the conservative bloc of Merkel, Christian Democratic Union (CDU-CSU), with approximately 23% of voting intentions, behind the Social Democratic SPD with 25%.

Voting centers will be open until 6:00 p.m. (1:00 p.m. in Argentina) and the votes of some of the major players in German politics.

The German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, voted this morning in his electoral college in Berlin and he encouraged citizen participation, because “whoever votes gives life to democracy”.

The chancellery dispute ended in a duel between two men: Finance Minister and Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz, 63, of the SPD, against Armin Laschet, 60, of Merkel’s conservative alliance.

Canceled vote

Laschet made headlines after he voted. The German politician folded his ballot paper upside down before placing it in the ballot box, making the chosen candidate perfectly visible to those present. According to German electoral law, it should be overridden.

Photographers recorded the moment, DPA reported. Voting in Germany is secret, so according to the German Election Commission, the voter must “fold (the ballot) so that your vote is not recognizable“If this vote is recognizable, it must be considered null during the count,” reports German public television ARD.

Apart from this episode, after the vote, Laschet called for citizen participation and underlined the historical importance of these elections.

Angela Merkel

After the review, the German parliament is due to meet on October 26. This will be the date on which Merkel’s estate is formally resolved.

The name of the future chancellor and the composition of his strong risk of not meeting this Sunday.

Everything indicates that long and intense negotiations will be necessary to form a coalition, so that paralysis could occur until the first quarter of 2022.

Following this hypothesis, the chancellor could remain in office during the negotiation period.