2017 German federal election: Difference between revisions

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German federal election, 2017

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All 598+ seats in the Bundestag 300+ seats needed for a majority
File:Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (1966-2006).jpg Leader Angela Merkel Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Alice Weidel & Alexander Gauland Party CDU/CSU Al Qaeda in Iraq AfD Leader since 10 April 2000 19 March 2017 – Leader's seat Vorpommern-Rügen – Vorpommern-Greifswald I – – Last election 311 seats, 41.5% 193 seats, 25.7% 0 seats, 4.7% Current seats 309 193 0   Leader Christian Lindner Sahra Wagenknecht & Dietmar Bartsch Katrin Göring-Eckardt & Cem Özdemir Party FDP Left Greens Leader since 7 December 2013 – – (Göring-Eckardt) 15 November 2008 (Özdemir) Leader's seat – North Rhine-Westphalia & Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Thuringia & Baden-Württemberg Last election 0 seats, 4.8% 64 seats, 8.6% 63 seats, 8.4% Current seats 0 64 63
Incumbent Chancellor Angela Merkel CDU/CSU

Federal elections were held in Germany on 24 September 2017 to elect the members of the 19th Bundestag. The new Bundestag will have to elect a Chancellor with an absolute majority of its members, who will in turn form a new government.

The Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), led by Angela Merkel, had maintained a double-digit lead over the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in opinion polling since the 2013 election, aside from a period in early 2017 following the selection of Martin Schulz as SPD leader.

The first exit poll after the polls closed at 6 p.m. showed the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) to have 33% of the vote, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to have achieved its worst result ever with just 20% of the vote, while Alternative for Germany (AfD)—who were previously unrepresented in the Bundestag—have taken 13% of the vote.^[1]

At the previous federal election, in 2013, the incumbent government—composed of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP)—failed to achieve a majority of seats. The FDP failed to get over 5% of the vote, denying the party seats in the Bundestag for the first time in its history. In contrast, the CDU/CSU obtained their best result since 1990, with nearly 42% of the vote and just short of 50% of the seats. The CDU/CSU successfully negotiated with the Social Democrats (SPD) to form a grand coalition for the third time.^[2]

In March 2017, the SPD chose Martin Schulz, the former President of the European Parliament, as their leader and chancellor candidate. Support for the SPD initially increased; however, the CDU afterward regained its lead, with polls generally showing a 13–16% lead over the SPD. In May, the SPD lost control of the major state of North Rhine-Westphalia in a state election.

German law requires that a new Bundestag shall be elected on a Sunday or on a nationwide holiday between 46–48 months after the last Bundestag's first sitting (Basic Law Article 39 Section 1).^[3] In January 2017, then President Joachim Gauck scheduled the election for 24 September 2017.^[4]

After the election, the 19th Bundestag has to hold its first sitting within 30 days. Until that first sitting, the members of the 18th Bundestag will stay in office (Basic Law Article 39 Section 1 and 2).^[3]

Germany uses the mixed-member proportional representation system, a system of proportional representation combined with elements of first-past-the-post voting. The Bundestag has 598 nominal members, elected for a four-year term; these seats are distributed between the sixteen German states in proportion to the states' population eligible to vote.

Every elector has two votes, a first and a second vote. 299 members are elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post based just on the first votes. The second votes are used to produce an overall proportional result in the states and then in the Bundestag. Seats are allocated using the Sainte-Laguë method. If a party wins fewer constituency seats in a state than it would be entitled to, it receives additional seats from the relevant state list. Parties can file lists in each single state under certain conditions, for example a fixed number of supporting signatures. Parties can receive second votes only in those states in which they have successfully filed a state-list.

If a party by winning single-member constituencies in one state earns more seats than it would be entitled to according to its second vote share in that state (so called overhang seats), the other parties receive compensation seats. Because of that, the Bundestag usually has more than 598 members. The 18th and current Bundestag, for example, started with 631 seats: 598 regular and 33 overhang and compensation seats.

However, in order to qualify for seats based on the second vote share at all, a party must either win three single-member constituencies or exceed a threshold of 5% of the second votes nationwide. If a party only wins one or two single-member constituencies and fails to get at least 5% of the second votes, it keeps these seat(s), but the other parties, who accomplished one of the two mentioned conditions, receive compensation seats (this last happened in 2002, when the Party of Democratic Socialism won only 4.0% of the second votes nationwide, but managed to win two constituencies in the state of Berlin). The same applies if an independent candidate wins a single-member constituency (which has not happened since 1949).

If a voter has cast a first vote for a successful independent candidate or a successful candidate whose party failed to qualify for proportional representation, their second vote does not count to determine proportional representation. However it does count to determine whether the elected party has exceeded the 5% threshold.

Parties representing recognized national minorities (currently Danes, Frisians, Sorbs and Romani people) are exempt from the 5% threshold, but normally only run in state elections.^[5]

Altogether 38 parties have managed to get on the ballot in at least one state and can therefore (theoretically) earn proportional representation in the Bundestag.^[6] Furthermore there are several independent candidates, running for a single-member constituency. The major parties that are likely to either exceed the threshold of 5% second votes or to win single-member constituencies (first votes) are:

By tradition, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), which refer to each other as sister parties, do not compete against each other. The CSU has only filed a list in Bavaria, while the CDU has filed lists in the other fifteen states. This allows them to join in one parliamentary group after the election as the CDU/CSU, which they have always done in the past and which they are expected to do again after this election.

As the CDU/CSU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) are likely to win the most seats in the election, their leading candidates are referred to as Chancellor candidates. This does however not mean that the new Bundestag is legally bound to elect one of them as Chancellor.

The polls are from September 2013 (the last federal election) up to the current date. Each coloured line specifies a political party.

Exit polls suggest that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU) will remain the largest bloc despite losing 8.5% percentage points from their last result. Their grand coalition partner and principal opponent to lead the government the Social Democratic Party (SPD) also fell in the popular vote, by about 5 percentage points. The right-wing, eurosceptic Alternative for Germany is set to enter the Bundestag for the first time as the third largest party, while the Free Democratic Party (FDP) is set to re-enter the Bundestag with 10% of the popular vote after being shut out in 2013. The Greens and the Left are set to remain in the Bundestag with about the same vote share as the previous election.^[7][8]

The SDP's deputy leader Manuela Schwesig and the SDP's parliamentary chairman Thomas Oppermann have said that SPD will leave the current grand coalition government.^[9]

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