Voters are heading to the polls in Germany, with the country’s far-right AfD party expected to make large gains.

Polling stations opened their doors at 8am local time (7am UK), with exit polls released and counting set to begin as soon as voting closes at 6pm (5pm UK).

The outcome, which will determine how the country is run for the next four years, is expected to be clear fairly quickly, but the final official result is expected early on Monday.

The centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) looks set to once again become the largest party in the Bundestag with 220 seats, allowing them to reinstall their first chancellor since Angela Merkel stepped down in 2021.

According to YouGov’s final MRP poll before the election, the far-right AfD’s 145 seats will surpass the 115 projected for the governing SPD, after its popularity has collapsed under chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The Greens, who partner the SPD in a coalition, are also projected to fall from their record 15 per cent vote share in 2021 to 13 per cent on Sunday.

German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the elections after Mr Scholz lost a vote of confidence on 15 January – after losing the support of his coalition when he fired finance minister Christian Lindner amid tensions over economic policy.

But the governing coalition had been falling in popularity long before the dispute within government, with the AfD having surged in federal elections in Thuringia and Saxony last September.






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Live: Voting begins in Germany as final poll predicts significant gains for AfD