Germany votes in tight polls to find heir to 'eternal' chancellor

Germans went to the polls on Sunday in a national election too close to call, with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) mounting a strong challenge to retiring Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives.
 
In office so long she was dubbed Germany’s “eternal chancellor”, Merkel has been in power since 2005 but plans to step down after the election, making the vote an era-changing event to set the future course of Europe’s largest economy.
 
A fractured electorate means that after the election, leading parties will sound each other out before embarking on more formal coalition negotiations that could take months, leaving Merkel, 67, in a caretaker role.
 
“We all sense that this is a very important federal election,” Armin Laschet told journalists after voting in his home constituency of Aachen. “It is a federal election that will decide the direction of Germany in coming years and therefore every vote counts.”
 
Running against Laschet is Olaf Scholz, the finance minister in Merkel’s right-left coalition who won all three televised debates between the leading candidates.

Scholz, 63, has seen his party’s lead over the conservatives squeezed to 1-3 points in final opinion polls, leaving Laschet with a chance of clinching a narrow victory.
 
“I hope that as many citizens as possible will go and vote and make a very strong result for the SPD possible and give me the mandate to become the next chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,” Scholz said after casting a ballot.