Polling stations closed at 6 pm on Sunday in Germany's federal election, with Friedrich Merz, the 69-year-old leader of the Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, looking on course to win, ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which appeared to be set for its best-ever result.

Voters had turned out in large numbers all day in the election, which boiled down to a fight between the center-right CDU and the anti-immigrant, far-right AfD.

Campaigning ahead of the vote had centered on the nation's poor economy in recent years, and on immigration, with many far-right supporters complaining migrants had changed the German way of life and overstretched its infrastructure.

Incumbent chancellor Olaf Scholz's center-left Social Democratic Party, or SPD, which had been part of a three-party coalition ahead of the snap election was widely expected to finish third.

In the final days before the election, parties tried hard to attract the 20 percent of voters who remained undecided. But many people in the 80 percent who had decided who to support were impassioned, with families divided and friendships stretched as people took opposing sides.

With the full results not expected for several hours, experts were predicting the CDU and SPD and possibly the Greens would form a coalition government, excluding the AfD from power, which was in line with the policy of mainstream parties to refuse to work with the far-right because of its extremist views.

More than 59 million people were eligible to vote in Sunday's election, with many choosing to take part in pre-election postal ballots to avoid election-day lineups.

Exit polls, which are often reliable in German elections, predicted Merz's CDU was set to get around 29 percent of the popular vote, with the AfD landing around 19.5 percent. The SPD was expected to secure around 16 percent, with the Greens getting support from 13.5 percent of voters. Other parties were polling at around 5 percent.

As the European Union's most populous country, its largest economy, and as an important member of the NATO military alliance, whatever happens in Germany is sure to greatly impact the rest of Europe and the world beyond.

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