Angela Merkel and his main rival have congratulated Olaf Scholz on his weekend election win as he hopes to form a coalition that will make him Germany’s next chancellor, writes The Guardian.

Merkel’s CDU-CSU conservative bloc slumped to its worst ever result in Sunday’s general election with 24.1% of the vote, behind Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats at 25.7%.

The poll drubbing has left the conservatives in chaos, with senior figures distancing themselves from the CDU leader, Armin Laschet, who campaigned to replace Merkel and has insisted on trying to build a coalition despite coming second.