Elections in Germany
All you want to know about Elections in Germany
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The following information deals with elections in Germany, including elections to the Federal Diet (the lower house of the federal parliament), the Landtags of the various states, and local elections.
German elections since 1949
Federal Republic of Germany
Election system
Germany elects on federal level a legislature. The parliament has two chambers. The Federal Diet (Bundestag) nominally has 598 members, elected for a four year term, 299 members elected in single-seat constituencies according to first-past-the-post, while a further 299 members are allocated from statewide party lists to achieve a proportional distribution in the legislature, conducted according to a system of proportional representation called the additional member system. Voters vote once for a constituency representative, and a second time for a party, and the lists are used to make the party balances match the distribution of second votes. In the current parliament there are 16 overhang seats, giving a total of 614. This is caused by larger parties winning additional single-member districts above the totals determined by their proportional party vote.
Germany has a multi-party system, with two strong parties and some other third parties that are electorally successful.
Elections are conducted every 4 years, with the exact date of the election chosen by the outgoing government. The Bundestag can be dismissed and a new election called before the four year period has ended, but this usually only occurs in the case of a government losing its majority.
German nationals over the age of 18 are eligible to vote, including most Germans resident outside Germany, and eligibility for candidacy is essentially the same as eligibility to vote.
The Federal Council (Bundesrat) has 69 members representing the governments of the states.
Latest election results
| Parties | Constituency | Party list | Total seats | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | +/− | Seats | +/− | Votes | % | +/− | Seats | +/− | Total | +/− | % | ||||
| Christian Democratic Union* (Christlich-Demokratische Union) | 15,390,950 | 32.6 | +0.6 | 106 | +24 | 13,136,740 | 27.8 | –1.7 | 74 | –34 | 180 | –10 | 29.3 | |||
| Christian Social Union of Bavaria* (Christlich Soziale Union in Bayern) | 3,889,990 | 8.2 | –0.8 | 44 | +1 | 3,494,309 | 7.4 | –1.6 | 2 | –13 | 46 | –12 | 7.5 | |||
| Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) | 18,129,100 | 38.4 | –3.5 | 145 | –26 | 16,194,665 | 34.2 | –4.3 | 77 | –3 | 222 | –29 | 36.2 | |||
| Free Democratic Party (Freie Demokratische Partei) | 2,208,531 | 4.7 | +1.1 | 0 | 0 | 4,648,144 | 9.8 | +2.5 | 61 | +14 | 61 | +14 | 9.9 | |||
| The Left Party.PDS (Die Linke.PDS), since 2007: The Left (Die Linke) | 3,764,168 | 8.0 | +3.7 | 3 | +1 | 4,118,194 | 8.7 | +4.7 | 51 | +51 | 54 | +52 | 8.8 | |||
| Alliance '90/The Greens (Bündnis '90/Die Grünen) | 2,538,913 | 5.4 | –0.2 | 1 | 0 | 3,838,326 | 8.1 | –0.5 | 50 | –4 | 51 | –4 | 8.3 | |||
| National Democratic Party of Germany (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) | 857,777 | 1.8 | +1.6 | 0 | 0 | 748,568 | 1.6 | +1.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | |||
| Other | 1,272,410 | 2.7 | – | 0 | 0 | 1,857,610 | 4.0 | – | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
| Totals | 47,194,062 | 100 | – | 299 | – | 47,287,988 | 100 | – | 315 | +11 | 614 | +11 | 100 | |||
*The Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union of Bavaria call themselves "sister-parties". They do not operate in the same regions and form one group in the Bundestag.
List of Federal election results
- 16th German federal election, 2005
- 15th German federal election, 2002
- 14th German federal election, 1998
- 13th German federal election, 1994
- 12th German federal election, 1990 (1st of the re-united Germany)
- 11th German federal election, 1987
- 10th German federal election, 1983
- 9th German federal election, 1980
- 8th German federal election, 1976
- 7th German federal election, 1972
- 6th German federal election, 1969
- 5th German federal election, 1965
- 4th German federal election, 1961
- 3rd German federal election, 1957
- 2nd German federal election, 1953
- 1st German federal election, 1949
State elections in the Federal Republic of Germany
State elections are conducted under various rules set by the Länder. In general they are conducted according to some form of party list proportional repesentation, either the same as the federal system or some simplified version. The election period is generally four to five years, and the dates of elections vary from state to state.
Baden-Württemberg state election results
Bavaria state election results
Berlin state election results
Brandenburg state election results
Bremen state election results
Hamburg state election results
Hesse state election results
Lower Saxony state election results
- Lower Saxony state election, 2008
- Lower Saxony state election, 2003
- Lower Saxony state election, 1998
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election results
North Rhine-Westphalia state election results
Rhineland-Palatinate state election results
Saarland state election results
Saxony state election results
Saxony-Anhalt state election results
Schleswig-Holstein state election results
Thuringia state election results
German Democratic Republic
In the German Democratic Republic, elections between multiple parties to the Volkskammer took place, but were effectively controlled by the SED/state hierarchy, even if multiple parties existed pro forma. On 18 March 1990 the only free elections in the history of the GDR were held, producing a government whose major mandate was to negotiate an end to itself and its state.
German elections 1871 to 1945
From the unification of Germany under Emperor Wilhelm I in 1871 to the Nazi accession to power and the abolishment of elections following the Enabling Act of 1933, elections were held to the German Reichstag or "Imperial Assembly", which supplanted its namesake, the Reichstag of the Norddeutscher Bund. The Reichstag could be dissolved by the Kaiser, and after the abdication of Wilhelm II in 1918 by the Reichspräsident. With the Weimar constitution of 1919, the voting system changed from single-member constituencies to proportional representation. Election age was reduced to 20 years. Women's suffrage had already been established by a new electoral law in 1918, following the November revolution of that year.
Elections in Nazi Germany
See: Nazi Germany
The 9th German election in 1933 was the last free election. In the Third Reich, several elections were conducted, leading to unanimous support of the NSDAP and their politicians, because other parties were dissolved or banned.
Weimar Republic elections
See: Weimar Republic
- 9th German election, 1933 (Weimar Republic)
- 8th German election, November 1932 (Weimar Republic)
- 7th German election, July 1932 (Weimar Republic)
- 6th German election, 1930 (Weimar Republic)
- 5th German election, 1928 (Weimar Republic)
- 4th German election, December 1924 (Weimar Republic)
- 3rd German election, May 1924 (Weimar Republic)
- 2nd German election, 1920 (Weimar Republic)
- 1st German election, 1919 (Weimar Republic)
Imperial elections
See: German Empire
- 13th German election, 1912
- 12th German election, 1907
- 11th German election, 1903
- 10th German election, 1898
- 9th German election, 1893
- 8th German election, 1890
- 7th German election, 1887
- 6th German election, 1884
- 5th German election, 1881
- 4th German election, 1878
- 3rd German election, 1877
- 2nd German election, 1874
- 1st German election, 1871
See also
Further reading
- Kitschelt, Herbert (October 2003). "Political-economic context and partisan strategies in the German federal elections, 1990-2002". West European Politics 26 (4): 125–152. doi:.
- Manow, Philip (January 2007). "Electoral rules and legislative turnover: Evidence from Germany's mixed electoral system". West European Politics 30 (1): 195–207. doi:.
<a href="http://www.vodafonelive.de/cp/pid/11?vf_partnerUrl=article146335.xml">vodafonelive</A>
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This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (August 2008) |
The German constitutional court decided that a certain practice of calculating the relative propartion that is decided by the proportional 2nd vote is inaccurate. With the first vote you pick your candidate in Germany. With the second vote you depict the proportion your party gets in parliament. The recent verdict suggests more direct democracy. It means that it is not relevant anymore if a party has a certain number of candidates depicted by the first vote and gets the proportion of seats in parliament "on top" by the 2nd vote. It meant before that the absolute number of seats in parliament is changed.This practice will be reduced in the future. The second vote will be more important thus.
External links
- Adam Carr's Election Archive
- Parties and elections
- Latest polling results for state and federal elections (in German)
- Official Site of "Bundeswahlleiter"
- Collection of German Election Posters of Weimar Republic and Federal Republic
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