It's Thursday, February 27, 2025. I'm Albert Moller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

The Conservatives won the recent election. It took place Sunday in Germany, a party identified as the leading party of the

center right, that would be the Christian Democratic Union, gained a plurality of seats in the

Bundestag in the German parliament, and thus the leader of that party, Friedrich Meritz,

is going to be Germany's new chancellor.

Germany, by the way, has a parliamentary system, the legislative

branch. The parliament is known as the Bundestag. There is also a federal president as head of state,

and so the German chancellor is the head of the government, but not the head of state. But in terms of

politics, the German chancellor is all that matters. The big story here is a

political shift, a shift away from the center left to the center right. Olaf Schultz, who had been

Germany's chancellor, he got the job after the retirement of Angela Merkel, who had been

chancellor for longer than anyone else in German history. It was Oaf

Schultz who basically conceded to reality, knowing that his party would lose. But the big question

is whether his party, the Social Democrats, that had been in power for some time, would come in second or third.

The party came in third. It is still expected to join with the party that gained the most here,

the Christian Democratic Union, headed by Friedrich Merritt, who will be chancellor. And so that

skips over, the party that came in number two, and that is alternative for Germany. It is known as

AFD, and that party is often described in the Western

media as a far-right party.

So the Christian Democratic Union, that's the party that came out way ahead in first place

in this election, is described as center-right.

The Social Democrats, a party that has been more inclined towards socialism, is

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