Angela Merkel wins third term in German elections

German chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives won Sunday's elections with the best result in over two decades but narrowly missed an absolute majority, preliminary official results showed.

German chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives won Sunday's elections with the best result in over two decades but narrowly missed an absolute majority, preliminary official results showed.

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Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party together won 41.5% of the vote against 25.7% for the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and 8.4% for the ecologist Greens.

The CDU's junior coalition allies the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) for the first time in over half a century missed out on any seats in parliament, garnering only 4.8%.