The Latest: German challenger promises ‘strong opposition’

BERLIN (AP) — The Latest on the outcome of Germany’s national election (all times local):

10:50 a.m.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-left challenger is promising to provide “strong opposition” after a crushing election defeat.

Martin Schulz’s Social Democrats won 20.5 percent of the vote Sunday, their worst result since World War II, and immediately vowed to leave the conservative Merkel’s “grand coalition” of Germany’s traditionally dominant parties.

Schulz said Monday its performance calls for it “to be a strong opposition in this country.”

He told supporters: “In a democracy, opposition is perhaps even a more decisive force than the government. It is the opposition that shows the government what it’s doing wrong.”

Schulz said the Social Democrats, who have lost four consecutive elections, are “the party that accepts its defeats, deals with them and turns them around to become the strongest force in this country in the future.”

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10:40 a.m.

French President Emmanuel Macron has congratulated German Chancellor Angela Merkel on winning a fourth term.

Macron said on Twitter he had a phone call with Merkel overnight.

He wrote: “We will resolutely continue our cooperation that is essential for Europe and our countries.”

Macron is expected to make a big speech on Tuesday to present his detailed proposals to reform the European Union.

Sunday’s election saw Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc comes first in Germany’s election. The vote also showed the rise of a nationalist, anti-migrant party.

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9:20 a.m.

A leader of the nationalist Alternative for Germany has laid open differences inside the party after it surged to third place in Germany’s election, announcing she won’t join its new parliamentary caucus.

Frauke Petry is the co-chairwoman of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, but has increasingly been sidelined by other leaders over recent months. AfD was particularly successful in Petry’s home region of Saxony in Sunday’s election, and Petry herself won a seat.

Petry has said she wants to make the party ready for government in 2021, while others have made clear their priority is no-holds-barred opposition.

Petry said at a news conference Monday with other leaders: “An anarchic party … can be successful in opposition, but it cannot make voters a credible offer for government.” Petry said she wouldn’t join AfD’s parliamentary caucus, and walked out without taking questions.

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8:40 a.m.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was embarking Monday on a complicated quest to form a new government for Europe’s biggest economy and find answers to the rise of a nationalist, anti-migrant party.

Sunday’s election left Merkel’s conservative Union bloc weakened after a campaign that focused squarely on Germany’s leader of the past 12 years. However, the result leaves no other party able to lead a new government, and Merkel herself lacks any obvious internal challenger.

The center-left Social Democrats — Merkel’s partners since 2013 in a “grand coalition” of Germany’s two traditionally dominant parties — vowed to go into opposition after a heavy defeat.

Caucus leader Thomas Oppermann doubled down on that pledge Monday, saying that “we will not conduct coalition talks, because voters have decided that the Social Democrats’ place is in opposition.”

“All of us, all the parties have the responsibility of giving this country a stable government,” Peter Tauber, the general secretary of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, told ZDF television. “And a coalition can only be successful if it is able to make compromises.”

Germany has no tradition of minority governments, and Merkel has already made clear she doesn’t want to try that option — which would in any case be a tall order, as her bloc has only 246 of the new parliament’s 709 seats.

That means the only politically plausible option is a three-way coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats and the traditionally left-leaning Greens. The combination, called a “Jamaica” coalition because the parties’ colors match those of the Caribbean nation’s flag, hasn’t been tried in a national government.

Merkel faces lengthy talks to secure an alliance with parties that have a tradition of mutual suspicion as well as differences on issues such as migration, European financial policy and the auto industry’s future.

At the same time, she faces pressure from conservative allies for an effective response to the third-place finish of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which entered parliament for the first time after a campaign that centered on harsh criticism of Merkel and her 2015 decision to allow in large numbers of migrants.

AfD took voters from Merkel’s bloc and to a lesser extent from the Social Democrats, while also mobilizing large numbers of people who didn’t previously vote.

“Of course I want to win back everyone who voted for AfD and previously voted for us,” Tauber said. “To do that, we have to confront AfD clearly and show that we have the better answers.”