Summary

  • Projected results from Germany's federal elections suggest the centre-left has edged ahead of the conservatives of Angela Merkel

  • The centre-left SPD candidate, Olaf Scholz, said the country had voted for change

  • It's the conservatives' worst-ever performance but leader Armin Laschet says it's all to play for

  • Laschet says he too could lead a governing coalition, though he acknowledges the results are disappointing

  • The parties in third and fourth place, the Greens and the liberal FDP, will be the kingmakers in coalition negotiations

  • Angela Merkel is standing down as chancellor after 16 years in power

  • But with the race this tight, we could be waiting weeks to find out who gets the top job

Live Reporting

Paul Kirby, Claudia Allen and Joshua Nevett

  1. How is the chancellor selected?

    The chancellor is not directly elected by German voters. Instead, they elect MPs to the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag.

    Usually the party with the most seats in the Bundestag picks the chancellor. But the any candidate for chancellor has to form a coalition to get over that 50% absolute majority line.

    So Angela Merkel’s conservatives won the most seats in the last Bundestag election in 2017 and formed a two-party government with the centre-left.

    Coalition-building always takes time and at this election it could be particularly tricky as there’s little chance of two parties having enough seats - three will probably be required. They will have to agree common ground and haggle over ministerial appointments.

    When a coalition deal has been struck, members of the newly elected parliament hold a vote to approve the new chancellor.

    A graphic showing how the election works

  2. Ballot bungle as big three vote

    It could be the biggest turnout in a German election for years. There's been a record postal vote of as high as 40%, which explains why turnout four hours before voting ended was down on last time at 36.5%.

    But all the talk on Sunday has been about conservative leader Armin Laschet's mistake in folding his ballot paper the wrong way - meaning his choices were visible as he posed for photos at his local polling station in Aachen.

    We're not legally supposed to show the close-up photos of how he voted, but take it from us - there was no surprise. Here he is without the zoom lens:

    Armin Laschet and his wife Susanne Laschet cast their vote in the general electionsReuters

    Both Armin Laschet and his wife Susanne voted with the ballot folded wrongly

    There were no such problems for the other two chancellor candidates, who both voted in Potsdam, a stunning, historic city outside Berlin and home to Frederick the Great's old summer palace.

    Annalena Baerbock votesEPA

    Greens leader Annalena Baerbock voted in the Potsdam constituency where she is a candidate

    Annalena Baerbock is standing in the same constituency as centre-left rival Olaf Scholz. That doesn't mean one of them will not become an MP, as there are two ways of being elected - by direct mandate and via the party list.

    German Finance Minister and Social Democratic Party (SPD) candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz (R) and his wife Britta ErnstEPA

    Here's Olaf Scholz leaving a Potsdam polling station with his wife, fellow politician Britta Ernst

  3. When will we know the result?

    People queuing in Berlin to voteReuters

    Long queues have been forming outside polling stations in Berlin on election day

    Polls close at 18:00 in Germany (16:00 GMT) and the winners and losers should be clear within hours.

    That’s when we’ll give you the first exit poll based on a survey of voters at 560 polling stations. First results will come in soon afterwards and projections will be updated throughout the evening.

    It could be tight, but by 20:15 local time (18:15 GMT), when the leaders of the six main parties in the Bundestag appear on TV in the traditional, post-vote “elephants roundtable”, we should have an idea which way the election is swinging.

    Preliminary results are expected in the early hours of Monday. That’s what happened in the last Bundestag vote in 2017, when Angela Merkel delivered a downbeat speech to mark her party's underwhelming results.

  4. What is the vote for?

    The BundestagGetty Images

    The Bundestag is made up of at least 598 seats, and usually more

    “Every vote counts,” was today’s message from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier as polls opened in the race for the Bundestag.

    Some 60.4 million Germans over the age of 18 have the right to vote and up to 40% are thought to have already done so by post.

    There are 709 seats in the outgoing parliament but this time there could be even more. Whoever gets the biggest vote will try to form a coalition to get an absolute majority in parliament. Until that happens we won’t know for sure who is chancellor.

    Unlike the current government of just two parties, Germany will now most likely need three to work together just to get over that 50% line.

    You can read our simple guide to how the election works here.

  5. Germans vote in election ending Merkel era

    Election workers prepare the mailed-in ballot letters during the German general electionsReuters

    Guten Tag and welcome to the BBC's live coverage of the 2021 federal election in Germany.

    There’s just under an hour left for Germans to cast their vote for members of parliament to represent them in the Bundestag. And significantly, this race also decides who will succeed Angela Merkel after almost 16 years as chancellor.

    Whoever replaces Mrs Merkel gets to shape Germany and its key role in Europe for the next four years. The winning party won’t be able to do it by themselves but will have to bring together other parties to form a coalition.

    The race could hardly be tighter with recent polls showing the two biggest parties almost neck-and-neck, led by Olaf Scholz of the centre-left Social Democrats, and Armin Laschet of the centre-right conservatives. The other candidate for chancellor is Annalena Baerbock of the Greens.

    We’ll bring you the latest updates and analysis from our team in Berlin and London as events unfold in Germany. And you'll be able to follow our TV coverage live from Berlin too.