The official results of Germany’s election are in, and Chancellor Angela Merkel's party has won overwhelmingly.  But although she’ll get a third term in office, her conservative Christian Democratic Party and its Bavarian allies just narrowly missed out on an historic absolute majority.

That means Merkel will have to form a coalition, and not with her preferred partners, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), which did not get enough votes to secure seats in parliament.  That means Merkel’s union (41.5 percent) will likely seek a coalition with the Social Democrats (25.7 percent) who won about 26 percent of the vote.

FDP chairman Philipp Roesler called it “the bitterest, saddest hour of the Free Democratic Party.”  It’s the first time since World War II the FDP has failed to meet the threshold for seats.

Leaping past the FDP are the Green Party (8.4 percent) and the former communist Left Party (8.6 percent).  Those two parties and Social Democrats technically combine to total a higher percentage of the vote than Merkel’s union, although not enough to form a government.