The militants, in suspense before the uncertain outcome of the elections in Germany

They dreamed of a clear victory for their leader, but supporters of Olaf Scholz were still on fire this Sunday night, despite the exit polls of the legislatures in Germany give the Social Democratic candidate a slight advantage.

The atmosphere, which until late in the afternoon was quite festive, suddenly became tense after the announcement of the first results.

“I am surprised, I thought that the SPD [los socialdemócratas] it would be stronger ”, confided, disappointed, the member of the SPD Christian Tänzler, 59, who attended the electoral evening organized by his party in the house “Willy Brandt”, named after the first German Social Democratic Chancellor (1969-1974).

“I expected a little more. I’m disappointed”Suzanne Böltes, 50, commented for her part. In pre-election polls, the SPD had a clear advantage over the Conservatives.

But for the younger militants, who have only known the SPD in its lowest hours, as the party has been in free fall in recent years, the results were an indication of the rebirth of the formation.

“After 16 years, the Social Democracy may once again be the most powerful force in Germany for the first time and that is reason to rejoice”, considered Sebastian Niestroj, 26 years old.

Each new estimate confirmed the advance of the center-left and was greeted with applause.

Around 9:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. GMT), polls attributed between 24.9% and 25.8% of the votes to the SPD, and to the conservative alliance formed by the Christian-Democratic Union and its Bavarian partners of the CSU, led by Armin Laschet, between 24.2% and 24.7%.

“Arrogant” conservatives

Meanwhile, in the headquarters of the Conservatives, in the center of Berlin, he planned the possibility that the CDU would have to leave power after 16 years.

“The result is very bad for the CDU, unacceptable,” Gereon Stieler, 26, said angrily.

Like Armin Laschet, this militant refused to admit defeat: “the CDU’s ambition is always to be in charge of the chancellery,” he stressed.

The only thing that seemed to satisfy him was that the eventual coalition of social democrats, environmentalists and the radical left seemed out of the question because of the poor result obtained by Die Linke, which the polls gave around 5%.

“This would have been a catastrophe for Germany, with the return of the communists from the former East Germany!”, Said the right-wing militant.

Others, on the other hand, preferred to criticize themselves. The party “may have given the impression that it was too arrogant and that it should automatically obtain the chancellery,” said 84-year-old Alfons Thesing in this regard.

Regenerating as an opposition, for the first time since 2005, perhaps “would not be a bad thing” for the party, said the militant, who nevertheless continued to bet on a possible CDU / CSU alliance with the FDP liberals and environmentalists.

“I do not doubt that we can govern with the Greens. They have new and good ideas. But now, they must make concessions, like the CDU, to form a government, ”he insisted.

Both the Social Democrats and the Conservatives faced a long election night, as the results would be slow to arrive, due to the scrutiny of the votes by mail, more numerous than usual.

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