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.

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 (SPD) 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.

Merkel, who is bowing out after 16 years at the helm of Europe’s top economy, had stayed out of the fray but broke her silence in a statement on Wednesday to reveal that she had congratulated Scholz “on his election success” earlier in the week.

Laschet, who was criticised in recent days for failing to publicly congratulate his opponent as Germany eyes the prospect of months of coalition wrangling, sent a letter of congratulation to Scholz that was received on Wednesday, party sources in the SPD and CDU-CSU told AFP.

The SPD was also buoyed up by a selfie posted on Instagram late on Tuesday that showed four leading members of the Greens and the pro-business FDP party smiling after their first – and secret – preliminary talks eyeing up a possible coalition.

The parties – which came third and fourth in the election – have emerged as the joint kingmakers of the first post-Merkel government, either under the SPD or the conservatives, but are historically wary of each other, diverging on key issues like tax hikes, climate protection and public spending.

The caption to the selfie, which went viral, said the Greens and the FDP “were exploring common ground and bridges over divisions. And even finding some”.

Both parties are eager to avoid a re-run of the 2017 election fallout, when the FDP dramatically walked out of talks to cobble together a coalition with the Greens and the conservatives, citing irreconcilable differences.

The Greens have signalled they are most comfortable governing with the SPD, while the FDP has been the junior coalition partner in a conservative-led government before.

The kingmaker parties plan to meet again in a more formal setting on Friday.

Scholz himself has tweeted that he is “optimistic” about an alliance with the Greens and the FDP, which has been dubbed a “traffic light” coalition after the parties’ colours.

The Greens co-leader, Annalena Baerbock, said the first meeting with the SPD would take place on Sunday.

“We have a clear mandate for renewal in our country,” she told reporters when asked whether the Greens would consider partnering with the conservatives as well.

The FDP, however, threw beleaguered Laschet a lifeline, with the general secretary, Volker Wissing, announcing that his party plans to hold talks with the CDU-CSU on Saturday, a day before meeting with the SPD.

Wissing said it was “too soon” to say which constellation would eventually emerge.

Merkel will stay on in a caretaker capacity throughout the coalition wrangling.