BERLIN—Germany’s conservative CDU party was on track to win a regional election in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) on Sunday, but the Green party could emerge as “kingmaker” in a potential coalition with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats and the FDP.
An exit poll by infratest dimap, published by broadcaster ARD, had the CDU taking 35.7 percent of votes, while the Social Democrats were on 27.0 percent.
The SPD will try to form a coalition with the Greens and the pro-business FDP—a so-called “traffic-light coalition”, Kevin Kuehnert, the SPD’s secretary general, said.
The Greens took 18.1 percent of the vote based on the exit poll, increasing their share by 11.7 percentage points, while the FDP was at 5.5 percent.
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