Merkel wins, but no absolute majority: official

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives won Sunday's elections with the best result in over two decades but narrowly missed an absolute majority, preliminary official results showed.

Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party together won 41.5 percent of the vote -- against 25.7 percent for the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and 8.4 percent for the SPD's preferred allies the ecologist Greens.

The CDU's junior coalition allies the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) for the first time in over half a century missed out on any seats in parliament, garnering only 4.8 percent, meaning Merkel's party will have to look for new partners to govern with.

The far-left Linke scored 8.6 percent, but the party, which succeeded East Germany's communists, is not seen as a potential coalition partner by the other left of centre parties.

The eurosceptic AfD, founded earlier this year, won 4.7 percent of the vote, falling just short, like the FDP, of a five-percent hurdle to enter the Bundestag or lower house of parliament.

The Internet freedom party the Pirates, which first made a splash two years ago, also disappointed its followers, with 2.2 percent.

And the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) missed out on seats with 1.3 percent while another xenophobic fringe group won just 0.2 percent.