German voters decide on Sunday who will run their next government, with Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democrats favourite to become the biggest party in power.

Reviving the European Union’s biggest economy as well as immigration and security are the main issues in this snap election, triggered by the collapse of centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition late last year.

We assess what and who you need to know ahead of the vote for Germany’s next parliament, the Bundestag.

After months of political deadlock and at a time of global uncertainty, Germans and their European allies are looking to this election to provide clear leadership and direction, as faith in their longstanding US alliance wanes.

At home, Germany’s faltering powerhouse economy is crying out for an overhaul after two years of recession – buffeted by high energy prices prompted by Russia’s war in Ukraine and stiff Chinese competition.

A series of deadly attacks has heightened pressure for reform to immigration and asylum rules. Immigrants have been accused of carrying out three fatal attacks during the election campaign – in Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg and Munich.

Security fears and rising discontent with politicians have propelled the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party into an expected second place.

If the AfD double their seats in parliament, it would present a challenge to the longstanding firewall – brandmauer – that has so far blocked the mainstream parties from working with them.

More than 59 million Germans aged 18 and over are eligible to take part in this vote for their next parliament.

Voting takes place between 08:00-18:00 (07:00-17:00 GMT) on Sunday, although millions of postal votes have already been cast. The result will become clear during the evening.

There are five candidates for chancellor.

If the biggest party can secure a coalition deal with one or two other parties, the president will usually nominate its leader as chancellor. Then parliament will hold a secret ballot to decide.

The frontrunner in the race to run Germany is Friedrich Merz, whose Christian Democrats (CDU) are up to 10 points ahead in the polls. He was chosen as candidate for chancellor ahead of Markus Söder, the leader of their sister party in Bavaria the Christian Social Union.

Aged 69 and 198cm (6ft 6in) in height, Merz is a plain-talking, pro-business, social conservative who has spent years waiting in the wings.

Eclipsed in the CDU by Angela Merkel in 2002, he eventually left politics, served on the boards of investment banks and took up flying as an amateur pilot.

Merz’s first two bids to win the CDU leadership failed, against Merkel in 2018 and then Armin Laschet who went on to lose the German election in 2021.

Merz then took over the CDU and is running under the slogan “A Germany we can be proud of again”.

He has promised permanent border controls and faster asylum rules to restrict immigration, and to cut taxes and slash €50bn in welfare spending in a bid to kickstart Germany’s faltering economy. He has also promised to bolster aid for Ukraine.

But he provoked a furious backlash ahead of the election when he sought to tighten immigration rules by relying on the votes of the far-right AfD, and he ultimately failed.

Although Merz has ruled out working with the AfD, former CDU chancellor Angela Merkel said he was “wrong” to accept AfD votes and he has faced big protests.

He has also promised greater leadership from Germany in Europe, and beefed-up support for Ukraine, refusing to rule out future membership of Nato.

Olaf Scholz has already served more than three years as chancellor, at the head of an unpopular coalition that fell apart in a row over loosening Germany’s strict debt rules.

His government struggled from the start, largely because of the effect of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine on Germany’s economy.

Germany became Ukraine’s biggest aid-provider in Europe. Scholz spoke of a Zeitenwende (turning point) in boosting German defence policy and military spending – but he was accused of acting too slowly or too late. He now promises European support for Ukraine “for as long as necessary” and rejects the idea of any dictated peace.

Scholz has backed faster deportation of failed asylum seekers and his government reimposed border checks which he says have brought asylum requests down by a third in one year.

Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) want to establish a “Germany fund” to boost investment and to raise the minimum wage to €15 (£12.50) an hour from €12.82.

Many in party believed he should have allowed party colleague Boris Pistorius to run for chancellor instead.

However, the party has joined conservatives in the past and although Scholz said he could no longer trust Merz, the Social Democrats remain potential partners.

Alice Weidel, 46, is the AfD first candidate for chancellor since the party was created in 2013. She has also basked in the support of billionaire Elon Musk, and was rewarded with a meeting with US Vice-President JD Vance during his visit to Munich.

Weidel has little chance of winning power, but she has become popular with young voters on TikTok, amassing more than 870,00 followers, and she has reached far more of the population with repeated appearances in TV election debates.

Co-led by Tino Chrupalla, the AfD has already secured one recent victory, in September’s state election in Thuringia in the east. And while he and Weidel hope for big advances, their main aim is to pave the way for even greater success in four years’ time.

Elon Musk said the ex-Goldman Sachs analyst could not be a right-wing extremist as she “has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka”.

And yet she has backed the mass deportation of migrants, embracing the highly controversial term “remigration” – which she defines as deporting criminals and “illegal” migrants.

She also wants to end sanctions on Russia, repairing the destroyed Nord Stream gas pipelines; and she wants to tear down wind turbines, which she calls “windmills of shame”, even though they now provide a quarter of Germany’s electricity.

Party supporters have cheered her with the slogan Alice für Deutschland (Alice for Germany), which sounds similar to a banned Nazi slogan Alles für Deutschland.

Robert Habeck’s Greens played a key role in the Scholz government as vice-chancellor and economy minister.

But one of his flagship policies, phasing out fossil-fuel heating systems in Germany, had to be watered down and led to a dive in the government’s poll ratings. He rejects any return to nuclear energy, and calls for more affordable access to renewable energy which by the end of last year supplied 63.4% of Germany’s electricity needs.

Habeck, 55, has taken a strong line on aid for Ukraine, and he has forcefully criticised Friedrich Merz for relying on votes from the AfD in parliament.

Relations with Friedrich Merz are awkward, after he accused the CDU leader of disqualifying himself as chancellor and Merz has described him as a “representative for heat pumps”.

Like Alice Weidel’s AfD, Sahra Wagenknecht and her BSW party back closer relations with Russia and has built a strong support base in eastern Germany.

Wagenknecht calls her politics “left conservativism” and presents herself as an alternative to the AfD, backing strict limits on asylum and immigration.

She shares the AfD’s opposition to German military support for Ukraine and has been accused of parroting Kremlin narratives on the war.

But she may struggle to reach the 5% national threshold to get into parliament.

Elections to the Bundestag usually take place every four years – this one had been due on 28 September 2025 but was brought forward because of the collapse of the Scholz government.

Over-18s get two votes, which will decide who sits in the Bundestag, now slimmed down from 733 seats to 630.

One vote is to elect members of the Bundestag directly in 299 constituencies. The second is to choose a political party in one of the 16 states that you live in.

Any party that wins 5% of that second vote is allowed to enter the Bundestag, and they then use their state lists to pick their MPs.

Complex rules on allocating seats have been abolished, but the new rules mean some candidates who win their local races may lose out, if their parties do not do as well in the state as a whole.

One of old rules will remain. Any party that fails to poll 5% of the vote can still get in, if they win in three of the 299 constituencies.

The conservative CDU and CSU parties are favourite to win the most seats, but by ruling out a coalition with the AfD Merz has narrowed their options of potential partners in government.

That makes a deal most likely with the Social Democrats.

Many in the SPD are reluctant to work with Merz after last month’s migration row, but a so-called grand coalition of the two parties is still on the cards.

If they fail to secure more than half the seats in the Bundestag between them for an absolute majority, they may need a third party, most likely the Greens.