The future of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition has been thrown into doubt after her deputy chancellor lost the leadership race of his party.
Olaf Scholz, who is also finance minister, lost his bid to become leader of the centre-left SPD.
The party is now expected to vote on whether to stay in the coalition with Ms Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU.
Mr Scholz’s joint challengers, Norbert Walter-Borjans und Saskia Esken, have been highly critical of the coalition.
Elsewhere on Saturday, the far-right AfD, which is the biggest opposition party in the German parliament, elected Tino Chrupalla, a lawmaker from eastern Germany, to lead the party along with Joerg Meuthen.