Christian Lindner, the leader of Germany’s pro-business Free Democratic Party, has announced that he is retiring from politics following a disastrous defeat in Sunday’s Bundestag elections.
Lindner served as finance minister in the ‘traffic light’ ruling coalition between his party, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats and the Greens, which collapsed last year after the FDP leader pulled his support from the government due to a dispute over the budget.
“The federal election brought a defeat for the FDP, but hopefully a new beginning for Germany. That was what I had fought for,” Lindner wrote on social media.
“Now I am retiring from active politics,” he added.
As of 00:35 am local time on Monday, projections reported by the German media suggest that Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU) has received 28.5% of the votes, while the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is projected to receive 20.7%. The FDP is projected to receive just 4.4%, under the 5% threshold required for them to obtain seats in the legislature.
Scholz conceded defeat in a speech on Sunday night. “This is a bitter election result for the Social Democratic Party. It is also an electoral defeat,” he said in his first statement after preliminary results were released.
The campaign was dominated by calls to crack down on illegal immigration and extremism in the wake of a string of terrorist attacks. The parties also spoke about the need to reimagine Germany’s role in world affairs in response to US President Donald Trump’s push to resolve the Ukraine conflict without the EU’s approval.
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