Conservatives win German election while far-right party surges to second place

Provisional results in Germany’s election confirmed that mainstream conservatives won German’s national election, while a far-right party surged to become the nation’s second-largest party.

The results released by the electoral authority showed the conservative Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats winning a combined majority of seats in the national legislature after small parties failed to make the electoral threshold.

The left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, came in just barely under the 5% hurdle needed to get seats in parliament, while the pro-business Free Democrats also failed to reach 5%.