Who gets the job looks likely to depend on the decision of the prospective junior partners, the environmentalist Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats — parties that traditionally belong to rival ideological camps. The Greens traditionally lean toward the Social Democrats and the Free Democrats toward the Union, but neither ruled out going the other way on Sunday night. Final official results gave the Social Democrats 25.7% of the vote and the Union 24.1%. The Union — made up of Laschet’s Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister, the Christian Social Union — had never previously polled below 31% in a national parliamentary election. The Social Democrats took 206 seats, the Union 196, the Greens 118, the Free Democrats 92, Alternative for Germany 83 and the Left Party 39.
