September 30, 2021: -On Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has reportedly congratulated Olaf Scholz, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, on his party’s election success, a government spokesperson said.

On Monday, According to Reuters, “The Chancellor congratulated Olaf Scholz on his election success,” the statement read.

It’s the first time Merkel’s comments on the election outcome have been made public since Sunday. Preliminary results showed that the Social Democratic Party had narrowly beaten Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union.

With no clear majority for either the SPD or the CDU-CSU, both will now have to enter into what is expected to be long and drawn-out negotiations with Germany’s two main smaller parties, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democratic Party about forming a three-party coalition government.

The result is poor for the CDU-CSU alliance, a political powerhouse that has dominated German politics for years.

Traditional allegiances and existing sympathies amid the mainstream parties stand to complicate any coalition formation. The Greens favored a coalition with the SPD rather than the CDU-CSU, and the FDP selected collaboration with the CDU-CSU rather than the SPD.

Although the two main political forces in Germany, the SPD, and CDU-CSU, could achieve a majority in parliament if the forces are combined, the parties have governed together in a so-called “grand coalition” in recent years, neither has much appetite to continue such an arrangement.

As it stands then, German voters could be weeks or even months before a new government is in place. Meanwhile, Merkel will remain as a caretaker chancellor; if she’s still in the role on December 17, she will be the longest-serving chancellor of Germany, ahead of Helmut Kohl.

Despite many German experts expecting coalition negotiations to be long and complex, the SPD’s chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz said a coalition should be in place before Christmas.

On Sunday, the CDU’s leader, and the CDU-CSU’s candidate for chancellor, Armin Laschet, conceded that the election result was disappointing for the bloc, telling his supporters that “we cannot be satisfied with the results of the election,” according to a Reuters translation.

“We will do everything possible to build a conservative-led government because Germans now need a future coalition that modernizes our country,” he added.

Germany’s smaller parties, which come to coalition talks from a position of strength, are likely to extract concessions from their bigger counterparts to agree to any coalition deal. The Greens and FDP have already held initial discussions on Tuesday.