Germany's mainstream conservatives won the country's national election, while a far-right party surged to become the nation’s second-largest party, according to provisional results following Sunday’s election.

The leader of the conservative Christian Democrats celebrated as exit polls indicated they had won Sunday’s election, which had the highest voter turnout in decades.

Friedrich Merz, leader of Germany’s CDU, is set to form a coalition after winning the most votes, per exit polls. The election saw Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) suffer a historic defeat and AfD make record gains.