Shortly before 6 p.m. you can hear a pin drop in the Willy Brandt House.

Silence before the first forecast.

Then the Union's bar grows, not very high.

Then the red one, the social democratic one.

And when it goes a tiny bit past the black bar, cheers break out for a few seconds.

A short pause follows, the first forecast for Berlin comes.

Cheers again.

Then Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: huge cheers.

The SPD is in the lead everywhere, at least according to ARD at this point in time, but nothing is certain in the federal government.

This becomes immediately clear when the ARD forecast appears, according to which both parties will be tied in the federal election.

Everything is open.

Peter Carstens

Political correspondent in Berlin

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According to initial forecasts, the Greens are weak, which is unexpected. And that some SPD supporters in the Willy Brandt House had hoped for the left is clear from the sighing that goes through the crowd when the party is estimated at only five percent. It's going to be a long evening, that's already clear at 6 p.m. The SPD will then see the projections for large parts of the evening about one point before the Union.

When SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz comes to the party headquarters shortly after 7 p.m., he is celebrated there. The members shout: “Olaf, Olaf!” In addition, cameras close together, reporters from all over the world, guests from all over the country. Scholz and his wife Britta Ernst are surrounded by the party leadership, Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans. A few minutes earlier, Scholz's competitor in the race for the Chancellery, Armin Laschet (CDU), declared that he would continue to strive to lead a government regardless of the outcome of the election. Every vote for the Union is a vote against a left-wing federal government. This triggers unrest in the SPD. When Laschet then throws the Greens up against the neck and announces a “future coalition” with climate priority, outrage breaks out in the Willy Brandt House.

Scholz does not hesitate long. Ten minutes later he appears in front of his supporters. Several times he starts to speak, the jubilation hardly wants to end. Scholz says: "The citizens want there to be a change in Germany and that the next Chancellor is Olaf Scholz." The SPD cheers. It is noteworthy that Saskia Esken then did not thank the candidate for chancellor first, but many others: the members, the candidates across the country. And in addition "Norbert, Lars, Olaf, Rolf". For Esken, Scholz is one of many who we owe our success to.

There are two well-known Social Democrats who comment on the first forecasts shortly after 6 p.m. “The SPD is back,” says Secretary General Lars Klingbeil on ZDF. “The SPD has the government mandate. We want Olaf Scholz to become Chancellor. ”Labor Minister Hubertus Heil calls the result a“ terrific success ”on ARD. It is "a vote of confidence" for Olaf Scholz. “I'm damn proud of my social democracy,” says Heil. When Scholz went to vote on Sunday morning in Potsdam's electoral district 4106, he said he was hoping for "a very strong result for the SPD and that the citizens give me the job of becoming the next Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany".

According to the last polls before the election, it was no longer to be expected that the party would get a particularly clear mandate to become chancellor. The Union had caught up and the Social Democrats could not expand their leadership any further. Scholz reacted irritably to the increasingly violent attacks by the Union and the Greens. With red ears, he let Armin Laschet cover him with allegations and suspicions in the television triumph - the keywords were financial scandals, house searches, left-wing coalition. But then he found his way back into his self-imposed serenity. Perhaps it helped that attacks by the adversary in surveys on competence as a candidate for chancellor had no noteworthy effect: twice as many respondents thought Scholz was more competent than Laschet until the end. But parties are elected for the Bundestag election.And party researchers did not tire to the last, remembering that the candidate is important, but the party is more important.