BERLIN (AFP) - Angela Merkel swept to a second mandate in Germanys election Sunday at the head of a new centre-right alliance she said would jumpstart Europes ailing powerhouse economy, preliminary results showed. We have achieved our goal of gaining a stable majority for a new government, a beaming Merkel told cheering supporters in Berlin. I want to be the chancellor of all Germans, so that things improve for our country. Initial results released on public television showed the 55-year-old Merkels conservative Christian Union bloc (CDU/CSU) as the clear winners with about 33.5 per cent of the vote. The voters have chosen, and the result is a bitter day for Social Democracy in Germany, Merkels Social Democrat (SPD) rival, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told dejected voters, conceding the defeat. There is no other way of saying it, this is a bitter defeat. The SPD, junior partners in Merkels loveless grand coalition, plummeted to between 22 and 23 per cent - their worst score since World War II - and will be banished to the Opposition benches after 11 years in government. Merkels favoured partners, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), captured nearly 15pc, meaning they will return to government for the first time since 1998. The majority will mean that Merkel, Germanys first female leader and the only chancellor from the ex-communist east, will serve another four-year term. Under Germanys complex electoral arithmetic, their combined score of about 48pc will almost certainly be enough to put them over the top. A centre-right coalition has governed Germany for 28 years out of 60 since the post-war republic was founded, making it the most common constellation in German politics. FDP leader Guido Westerwelle now aims to become vice-chancellor and foreign minister. With all of the main parties in the Bundestag lower house backing the deployment, with the exception of the far-left Die Linke, the Afghan mission failed to register as a decisive issue. Die Linke, however, had an exceptionally strong showing with nearly 13pc of the vote, putting the ecologist Greens in last place with around 10pc. Preliminary results were to trickle in during the night, at the end of a campaign dominated by the countrys deep economic troubles. The worlds number-two exporter has been badly hit by the global crisis. Heightened security after warnings from Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and others over Germanys military mission in Afghanistan also cast a shadow over voting.