This article documents a current election. Information may change rapidly as the election progresses until official results have been published. Initial news reports may be unreliable, and the last updates to this article may not reflect the most current information. (September 2017) |
Federal elections were held in Germany on Sunday, 24 September, 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.
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All 690 seats in the Bundestag 346 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Registered | 61,500,000 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 75.9 4.4 pp | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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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, and Alternative for Germany (AfD) — who were previously unrepresented in the Bundestag — have taken 13% of the vote.[1]
Background
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.
Date
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]
Electoral system
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 constituency and a list 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]
Parties and leaders
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.
Opinion polling
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.[8][9]
Results
The CDU/CSU and the SPD remained the two largest parties in the Bundestag, but both received a significantly lower proportion of the vote than they did in the 2013 election. Both the FDP and the AfD received enough votes to become parties in the Bundestag. This was the first federal election in which the right-wing AfD received enough votes to be represented in the Bundestag.
| Party | Constituency | Party list | Total seats |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Seats | Votes | % | Seats | ||||
| bgcolor="Template:Christian Democratic Union of Germany/meta/color" | | Christian Democratic Union (CDU)[a] | 5,774,429 | 28.0 | 5,132,085 | 24.8 | ||||
| bgcolor="Template:Social Democratic Party of Germany/meta/color" | | Social Democratic Party (SPD) | 5,071,025 | 24.5 | 4,288,996 | 20.7 | ||||
| bgcolor="Template:Christian Social Union in Bavaria/meta/color" | | Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU)[a] | 2,645,356 | 12.8 | 2,328,573 | 11.2 | ||||
| bgcolor="Template:Alternative for Germany/meta/color" | | Alternative for Germany (AfD) | 2,126,222 | 10.3 | 2,411,974 | 11.6 | ||||
| bgcolor="Template:Alliance 90/The Greens/meta/color" | | Alliance 90/The Greens (GRÜNE) | 1,622,908 | 7.9 | 1,786,384 | 8.6 | ||||
| bgcolor="Template:Free Democratic Party (Germany)/meta/color" | | Free Democratic Party (FDP) | 1,465,681 | 7.1 | 2,274,214 | 11.0 | ||||
| bgcolor="Template:The Left (Germany)/meta/color" | | The Left (DIE LINKE) | 1,268,734 | 6.1 | 1,453,390 | 7.0 | ||||
| Free Voters | 337,487 | 1.6 | 266,828 | 1.3 | |||||
| Ecological Democratic Party | 119,096 | 0.6 | 85,838 | 0.4 | |||||
| Die PARTEI | 56,053 | 0.3 | 159,368 | 0.8 | |||||
| Bavaria Party | 49,385 | 0.2 | 47,666 | 0.2 | |||||
| Template:German politics/party colours/PIRATEN | | Pirate Party Germany | 40,133 | 0.2 | 80,630 | 0.4 | ||||
| Template:German politics/party colours/NPD | | National Democratic Party | 13,361 | 0.1 | 67,743 | 0.3 | ||||
| Marxist–Leninist Party | 12,030 | 0.1 | 10,140 | 0.0 | |||||
| Human Environment Animal Protection | 11,446 | 0.1 | 154,783 | 0.7 | |||||
| Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität | 3,744 | 0.0 | 1,652 | 0.0 | |||||
| Animal Protection Alliance | 2,008 | 0.0 | 7,855 | 0.0 | |||||
| German Communist Party | 1,817 | 0.0 | 3,314 | 0.0 | |||||
| The Violets – for Spiritual Politics | 1,235 | 0.0 | – | – | – | ||||
| Alliance C | 992 | 0.0 | – | – | – | ||||
| New Liberals | 538 | 0.0 | – | – | – | ||||
| The Right | 397 | 0.0 | 1,127 | 0.0 | |||||
| Die Einheit | 373 | 0.0 | – | – | – | ||||
| V-Party | 30,557 | 0.1 | |||||||
| Gesundheitsforschung | 12,662 | 0.1 | |||||||
| Alliance for Germany | 5,144 | 0.0 | |||||||
| Human World | 4,270 | 0.0 | |||||||
| Socialist Equality Party | 387 | 0.0 | |||||||
| B* | |||||||||
| The Greys | |||||||||
| du. | |||||||||
| MG | |||||||||
| Family Party | |||||||||
| The Women | |||||||||
| Renter's Party | |||||||||
| BGE | – | – | – | 32,031 | 0.2 | ||||
| DM | – | – | – | 26,759 | 0.1 | ||||
| DiB | – | – | – | 23,043 | 0.1 | ||||
| AD-DEMOKRATEN | – | – | – | 19,405 | 0.1 | ||||
| The Humanists | – | – | – | 3,059 | 0.0 | ||||
| Others | 31,711 | 0.2 | – | – | – | ||||
| Independents | 2,455 | 0.0 | – | – | – | ||||
| Invalid/blank votes | 249,889 | – | – | 188,628 | – | – | – | – | |
| Total | 20,908,505 | 100 | 100 | ||||||
| Registered voters/turnout | 27,196,826 | 76.9 | – | – | – | – | |||
| Source: Bundeswahleiter (132 of 299 constituencies reporting) | |||||||||
Overhang seats
Because of the strong performance of the CDU and CSU in constituencies, they have an unprecedented number of overhang seats, and in turn an unprecendented number of leveling seatss will be allocated to other parties to create a proportional Bundestag. An anticipated 690 members, up from 631 members from 2013-2017, are expected to be seated. A "normal" Bundestag, without compensation for overhang seats, has 598 members.[10]
Government formation
The SPD's deputy leader Manuela Schwesig and the SPD's parliamentary chairman Thomas Oppermann have said that SPD will leave the current grand coalition government.[11] The media speculated that Chancellor Angela Merkel may need to form a Jamaica coalition (black-yellow-green) with the Free Democrats and the Greens, if the Social Democrats leave the government.[12][13]
References
- ^ "Germany heads to the polls". DW. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
- ^ "Bundesregierung: Die Große Koalition ist besiegelt" [The grand coalition (deal) is sealed]. Die Zeit (in German). 16 December 2013. ISSN 0044-2070. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^ a b "Art 39 GG – Einzelnorm". Gesetze-im-internet.de. Retrieved 9 September 2017.
- ^ "Bundespräsident Gauck fertigt Anordnung über Bundestagswahl aus". Bundespraesident.de. Retrieved 9 September 2017.
- ^ "Wahlsystem der Bundestagswahl in Deutschland – Wahlrecht und Besonderheiten". Wahlrecht.de. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
- ^ "Bundestagswahl 2017 – Übersicht: Eingereichte und zugelassene Landeslisten der Parteien". Wahlrecht.de. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
- ^ Nordsieck, Wolfram. "Parties and Elections in Europe". www.parties-and-elections.eu. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
- ^ "Merkel wins fourth term in Germany". BBC News. 24 September 2017. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
- ^ tagesschau. "Hochrechnung zur #btw17 von 19:22 Uhr.pic.twitter.com/1aWWuZWSN0". @tagesschau (in German). Retrieved 24 September 2017. 10:26 AM - 24 Sep 2017.
- ^ http://www.br.de/bundestagswahl/ueberhangmandate-bundestag-bundestagswahl-2017-100.html
- ^ Donahue, Patrick; Jennen, Birgit; Delfs, Arne (24 September 2017). "Merkel Humbled as Far-Right Surge Taints Her Fourth-Term Victory". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
- ^ "Germany election: Merkel wins fourth term, exit polls say". BBC News. London. 24 September 2017. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
- ^ "Germany's exit polls point to big losses for the two main parties". The Economist. Berlin. 24 September 2017. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
