At the heart of the election is the economy, which has been experiencing a downturn. The ruling coalition, comprising the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens, and the Free Democratic Party (FDP),

Friedrich Merz, a conservative rival of Angela Merkel, is on track to become the next chancellor, though the far-right AfD is expected to make historic gains.

An economic slump, an immigration crisis and the lifting of a security blanket provided for decades by the U.S. are issues on the minds of German voters. The far-right AfD is polling in second place.

Germans are going to the polls on Sunday for national elections. Opinion polls suggest the outcome will be a new chancellor and, likely, a new governing coalition.

For the first time since the fall of the Third Reich 80 years ago, there is a real possibility that a party with direct ideological continuity to the Nazis will enter government.

Germans go to the polls on Sunday in a snap election called after the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-way coalition. WHAT IS GERMANY'S HYBRID VOTING SYSTEM? Germany's reformed voting system aims to blend British- or American-style single-member constituencies with the proportionality characteristic of most continental European countries.

Germany heads to the polls on February 23. "You tried for three years to implement left-wing policies in Germany. You cannot continue with that anymore, "said Friedrich Merz, the chancellor candidate for the conservative Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union.