"The members have the final say," said party chairman Lars Klingbeil. "The members will make the final decision." Klingbeil is expected to take on leadership of the SPD's much reduced parliamentary group on Wednesday before representing the party in coalition talks with the CDU.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has admitted his Social Democratic Party (SPD) has suffered a "bitter election result," after preliminary figures showed the party plunging to its worst performance in the country's post-war history.

The centre-right CDU party has won the German elections but achieved a historically low result. The far-right AfD doubled its support, although it fell short of expectations. However, the biggest