Germany: Germany's two large political parties were the big losers after yesterday's general election, and the small parties the clear winners.
For the first time, the Social Democrats (SPD) and Christian Democrats (CDU) captured less than 70 per cent of the poll between them.
Mr Schröder cut an extraordinary figure last night, assuming the victor's pose in the SPD headquarters despite losing the ultimate political gamble. He called this snap election in May, a year early, after the SPD were ejected from power after 39 years in the North-Rhine Westphalia state election. The national election would silence left-wingers in his party and put his reform policies up to a referendum, he said.
Last night, first projections suggested he had lost that gamble, but there is still a lot to play for. Projected results showed the SPD with just 34 per cent of the vote last night, a 4.5 per cent loss on 2002, when he beat Bavarian premier Edmund Stoiber by a few thousand votes.
But the party continued to close the gap on the CDU late last night and the two parties could yet end up neck-and-neck.
Initial analysis showed the SPD lost voter trust on the key campaign issues of mass unemployment and the economy. Even Mr Schröder's own personality played a much smaller role, according to first polls. Despite all that, however, the Wechselstimmung (the mood for a change of government) had fallen from over 70 per cent to just 43 per cent.
CDU leader Angela Merkel struggled to explain her party's disastrous result in a series of interviews last night. The CDU had a 20-point lead on the SPD at the start of the campaign but still expected to capture around 41 to 43 per cent of the vote. One polling agency even predicted an overall majority with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) on Friday night. But the CDU result under Dr Merkel of 35.3 per cent is three points down on Mr Stoiber's result in 2002, and not far off the result that ended the Kohl era in 1998.
The first analysis showed that twice as many voters trusted the CDU on the economy, on jobs and on reforms but people were clearly confused as to the party's tax policy. She appointed as her finance adviser the university professor and tax expert Paul Kirchhof. However, he toured the country spreading confusion and anger with his own pet plan for a 25 per cent flat tax on all incomes.
The Greens were happy with their stable result of 8 per cent last night, but it was Free Democrat leader Guido Westerwelle who announced that "We are the winners of the election". In one sense, he is right.
The party posted a three-point lead to win over 10 per cent of the vote, the only of the four main parties to gain in voter affections.
But the FDP could end up the losers of the election, after Mr Westerwelle told anyone who would listen last night that he would not join a so-called "traffic light" coalition with the SPD (Red) and Greens, the most likely option besides a "grand-coalition" between the CDU and SPD.
The happiest of all political leaders last night were Oskar Lafontaine and Gregor Gysi, leading candidates of the Left Party, an electoral alliance of post-communists and former SPD left-wingers.
Mr Gysi said he is confident the party could build on its 8.5 per cent result and overtake the Greens in two weeks after voters go to the polls in Dresden in an election postponed by the death of a candidate.
He said the election result was far from confusing.
"The failure of the Red-Green government shows people's disappointment when they get CDU politics from the SPD," he said of the government's reform programme. "But no one wants real CDU politics either."