THREE THINGS were immediately clear when the exit polls in Germany’s election dropped at 6pm on February 23rd. The first was that the opposition conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), along with their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), had won a clear victory—if an underwhelming one, with slightly less than 30% of the vote. That paves the way for their candidate, Friedrich Merz (pictured), to take over from Olaf Scholz as chancellor after coalition talks. The second was that the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) had surged to its best-ever score, with close to 20%, a result that will roughly double its number of seats in the Bundestag. Alice Weidel, the party’s co-leader, hailed the “historic success”. The third was the extraordinary turnout. Some 84% of eligible Germans cast a ballot, the highest figure since reunification 35 years ago.