By Anton Troianovski | WSJ

BERLIN—Sunday's election rattled Germany's political landscape, kicking a bastion of the conservative establishment out of parliament for the first time since 1949 and catapulting an upstart anti-euro party to national prominence.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is set kept her post for four more years, with her Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party drawing a remarkable 41.5% of the vote. But while it cemented Ms. Merkel's dominance, the election left the rest of German politics in disarray.

View Slideshow

John Macdougal/AFP/Getty Images

Supporters of the Christian Democratic Union celebrate as exit polls were broadcast on television in Berlin on Sunday, after the German general elections.

The business-oriented Free Democratic Party, Ms. Merkel's junior partner in her center-right government since 2009, suffered a historic defeat with just 4.8% of the vote, a preliminary count from all election districts. The result put the FDP, a party that served as a junior partner in government for 46 of the last 64 years, below the 5% of the vote needed for seats in parliament for the first time in German postwar history.
FDP supporters chalked up their collapse in part to the rise of an anti-euro party founded just months ago, the Alternative for Germany, known by its German initials AfD. The party drew about 4.7% of the vote, just short of parliament but better than what polls showed during much of the campaign.

Enlarge Image

Associated Press

Ms. Merkel celebrates Sunday at the Christian Democratic Union's headquarters in Berlin. She looks set to keep her post for four more years.

The left-of-center also appeared rudderless. The Social Democrats, the main opposition party, had its second-worst election result in history with just over 25% of the vote and struggled with an uninspiring candidate, former Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück. The environmentalist Greens, who lost ownership of a core issue after Ms. Merkel agreed to wean Germany off of nuclear power in 2011, dropped to 8.4%.
Ms. Merkel's alacrity in adopting rival policies made it hard for the opposition to attack her. She has often justified her ideological flexibility by saying that the CDU is a big tent, not a narrowly conservative movement.

German Election Interactive

View the parties, see the history, build your own coalition.

View Graphics

WSJ

"She takes the wind from everybody's sails," said Cem Özdemir, co-chairman of the Greens, whose lackluster support partly reflected the fact that Ms. Merkel copied their popular stance against nuclear energy. "She becomes Green when it helps her and becomes a Social Democrat when that's beneficial, too," Mr. Özdemir said in an interview.

More on the German Election

• Merkel Wins Big in German Election
• Germany's Liberals Suffer Historic Collapse
• Fate of Smaller Parties to Determine Outcome
• German Business Demands New Energy Policy
• Heard on the Street: Europe's Long To-Do List
• Opinion: Germany's Election About Nothing
• Election Updates

Wall Street Journal reporters capture the reactions to the first exit polls in the German election. Look out for the stunned silence at the Free Democrats’ headquarters as they find out that they are unlikely to have any representation in parliament.

Smaller parties were squeezed by the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats as the German electorate opted for stability, says John C. Kornblum, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany.

As a result of the FDP's exit and the Greens' weakness, the third-strongest force in the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, may be the radical Left party when the legislature reconvenes.
The Left, which received about 8.6% of the vote, emphasizes social justice and pacifism but is a political pariah in much of Germany because of its East German Communist roots. As a result, the Greens and Social Democrats aren't expected to try to form a coalition with the Left, even though such a grouping would have a hair's width majority over Ms. Merkel's party.
Instead, the next weeks in Berlin will likely turn into a period of gamesmanship as Ms. Merkel tries to form a stable governing coalition. Sunday night's vote count shows Ms. Merkel's Christian Democrats will need to find a partner to stay in government.
Her only options with the left out of the picture are the Greens and the Social Democrats. Commentators in Berlin saw the latter as the more likely option Sunday night. The Social Democrats governed with Ms. Merkel in her first term from 2005 to 2009, and polls show that many Germans would be happy with such an outcome, known as a "grand coalition" because it would unite the country's two largest political parties. Such a government would also have a majority in the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, offering support for Ms. Merkel throughout the legislature.

Outside parliament, however, German politics is entering an uncertain stage.
The FDP will be reevaluating its message and its leadership as it seeks to rebuild. For decades, the party has counted as a stronghold of business-friendly conservative values and as a political kingmaker.
Philipp Rösler, Germany's economics minister and the party head, called it the "most bitter and saddest" night in party history. Guido Westerwelle, the foreign minister and one of the FDP's most prominent politicians, grimaced onstage alongside Mr. Rösler, at times appearing to fight back tears. In the sullen crowd of FDP supporters gathered for an election-watching celebration Sunday night, many said the party had to sharpen its message and perhaps take a harder line on European bailouts.