23.09 Merkels Party Wins German Polls Early Results
BERLIN, September 23 (RIA Novosti) German Chancellor Angela Merkels conservative party has won Sunday's parliamentary elections in Germany with best results in more than two decades, but stopped short of absolute majority, official preliminary results show.
With ballots from all polling stations counted early on Monday, Merkels Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Social Union of Bavaria, received 41.5 percent of the vote in total.
The countrys main opposition force, center-left Social Democrats (SPD), won about 25.7 percent of the vote.
For the first time since 1949, Merkels coalition partners from the pro-business Free Democrats finished just below the 5 percent minimum level needed to claim seats in Germans lower house, and scored 4.8 percent.
The environmental Green got 8.4 percent, while former communists from The Left party scored some 8.6 percent. The new Alternative fuer Deutschland party, which advocates withdrawal from the euro currency, garnered 4.7 percent, just short of the parliamentary threshold.
The distribution of seats in the countrys new parliament will be known later.
The turnout was about 71.5 percent.
