Photo Gallery The Losers
One SPD supporter grips his head is disbelief as he glances at the screens showing the results. According to TV polls, SPD support fell to a record low of 23.0 percent, down 11.2 points from 34.2 percent.
Merkel's SPD challenger, Frank-Walter Steinmeier (left), will lose his post as foreign minister as he goes into the opposition and could be succeeded by FDP leader Guido Westerwelle. "The voters have decided and the result is a bitter day for German social democracy; this is a bitter defeat," Steinmeier told SPD supporters gathered in the party's headquarters in Berlin.
Steinmeier was visibly disappointed by the outcome. It was the worst result for the SPD since World War II. In stark contrast to the SPD, support for the FDP, which campaigned on a platform of tax cuts, jumped by five points to 14.8 percent, the ARD projection showed. Steinmeier said: "I promise you we will be an opposition that will very closely monitor this new government. They must prove that they're capable and I have doubts about that."
SPD supporters on the streets of Berlin react to the initial results. The SPD has been in government since 1998 but was weakened by unpopular welfare cuts it enacted in 2003 and 2004 under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
One supporter in the city of Kiel grimaces as the initial results are broadcast. In his speech following the results announcement, Steinmeier said: "I look back on 11 years in government in which the SPD has made a major contributution to ensuring a good future for this country and bringing it forward."
Disappointment in the SPD camp: Many traditional SPD voters drifted to the Left Party, which was formed in 2007, or they didn't bother to vote at all because they were put off by the SPD's failure to maintain a strong left-wing identity while in power as a junior partner to Merkel's conservatives.
