Sunday's election has proved yet another victory for Chancellor Merkel's center-right CDU party. Early results showed 41.7 percent of the vote went to the CDU extending their hold on the Bundestag for another four years.

In 2009 the CDU and its CSU sister party won 33.8 percent of the vote with 239 seats in parliament. They formed a coalition with the business friendly Free Democrats (FDP) who won 14.6 percent of the vote. However, on Sunday the FDP earned just 4.7 percent of the vote, falling below the 5 percent threshold needed for representation in the Bundestag.

Federal Labor Minister Ursula von der Leyen shared her enthusiasm about the results with DW.

“This is overwhelming, the sign of confidence and trust we got tonight,” she said.

“People want Angela Merkel as chancellor they want the CDU as the leading party in the government and that is how we are going to lead coalition discussions with the other parties,” she said.

Whether Sunday's election marks the beginning of Chancellor Merkel's third term in office remains to be seen as her junior coalition partner, the FDP, looks set to fall below the 5 percent threshold needed to get into parliament.

She first won the chancellorship in 2005 and led a grand coalition between her CDU party and the Social Democrats (SPD).

Merkel, Germany's first female chancellor, has gone unchallenged in her own party and has earned respect domestically and abroad as a calm and steadfast leader of Europe's biggest economy.

Sunday's outcome was not a surprise as the CDU has long enjoyed a comfortable lead in opinion polls against its rival the Social Democrats (SPD).

The CDU's sister party, the CSU, won an absolute majority during the Bavarian election last week.

However the CSU's coalition partner, the Free Democrats, failed to win representation.

For more information about Germany's elections, please visit DW's election special page.