The 2017 German Federal Elections is scheduled to be held on Sunday September 24,2017 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.
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
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
In January 2017, then President Joachim Gauck scheduled the election for Sep 24,2017
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.
In the 2013 German Federal Election 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
2013 RESULTS
As Germany heads to the polls on Sunday Sep 24,2017, here are six numbers to watch for -- from pints to percentages and parliamentary debuts.
Four
Angela Merkel is seeking four more years and a fourth term as chancellor. If she wins, as widely projected by opinion polls, she would be on track to rival the record held by Helmut Kohl, who served 16 years as chancellor.
Five
Smaller parties in particularly will be anxiously watching to see if they can garner enough votes to cross the five-percent threshold to enter parliament.
Liberal party FDP, which in 2013 humiliatingly crashed out of the Bundestag after failing to meet the mark, is hoping for a comeback.
Seven
For the first time since the 1950s, a record seven parties are expected to enter parliament. The main newcomer is likely to be the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) which could also become the third-strongest party.
23
Junior partners in Merkel's outgoing coalition, the Social Democratic Party, will be hoping for a score that's as far as possible from their all-time low of 23 percent -- which they took in 2009.
Opinion polls suggest their support level is currently hovering even lower -- at around 22 percent.
35
Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union may also be looking at their lowest score of 35.1 percent, a figure which in 1998 ended Helmut Kohl's reign and ushered in an SPD-led coalition with the Greens.
76.7
Since Merkel took power in 2005, drinkers at the Oktoberfest have downed 76.7 million litres of beer at the annual festival -- the equivalent of around 30 Olympic-sized swimming pools
The new Bundestag will have to elect a Chancellor with an absolute majority of its members, who will in turn form a new government.
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
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
In January 2017, then President Joachim Gauck scheduled the election for Sep 24,2017
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.
In the 2013 German Federal Election 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
2013 RESULTS
- Christian Democratic Union (CDU) / Christian Social Union (CSU): 41.5 percent - 309 seats
- Social Democratic Party (SPD): 25.7 percent - 193 seats
- Die Linke: 8.6 percent - 64 seats
- Greens: 8.4 percent - 63 seats
- Free Democrats (FDP): 4.8 percent - 0 seats
- Alternative for Germany (AfD): 4.7 - 0 seats
- Plus 1 independent MP
As Germany heads to the polls on Sunday Sep 24,2017, here are six numbers to watch for -- from pints to percentages and parliamentary debuts.
Four
Angela Merkel is seeking four more years and a fourth term as chancellor. If she wins, as widely projected by opinion polls, she would be on track to rival the record held by Helmut Kohl, who served 16 years as chancellor.
Five
Smaller parties in particularly will be anxiously watching to see if they can garner enough votes to cross the five-percent threshold to enter parliament.
Liberal party FDP, which in 2013 humiliatingly crashed out of the Bundestag after failing to meet the mark, is hoping for a comeback.
Seven
For the first time since the 1950s, a record seven parties are expected to enter parliament. The main newcomer is likely to be the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) which could also become the third-strongest party.
23
Junior partners in Merkel's outgoing coalition, the Social Democratic Party, will be hoping for a score that's as far as possible from their all-time low of 23 percent -- which they took in 2009.
Opinion polls suggest their support level is currently hovering even lower -- at around 22 percent.
35
Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union may also be looking at their lowest score of 35.1 percent, a figure which in 1998 ended Helmut Kohl's reign and ushered in an SPD-led coalition with the Greens.
76.7
Since Merkel took power in 2005, drinkers at the Oktoberfest have downed 76.7 million litres of beer at the annual festival -- the equivalent of around 30 Olympic-sized swimming pools
Who can vote?
The 2009 and 2013 parliamentary elections saw a significant drop in German voter turnout to around 70 percent, but with the rise of the populist movement that draws on non-voters in all democratic states, the numbers are expected to rise this year.
This year, 61.5 million people age 18 and above are eligible to vote in the national election, according to figures from Germany’s Federal Statistics Office.
Of those, 31.7 million are women and 29.8 million are men with some 3 million first-time voters. Over a third of Germany’s voters – 22 million – are over 60 years old, meaning the older generation often has particular sway over the election outcome.
The largest number of eligible voters live in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (13.2 million), followed by the southern states of Bavaria (9.5 million) and Baden-Württemberg (7.8 million).
Split ballot
When Germans head to the polls on September 24, they’ll receive a deceptively simple ballot with two choices – one for a district representative and one for a party.
The first vote or “Erststimme” for the district representative, follows a first-past-the-post system like elections in the United States. The voter selects his or her favorite candidate to represent their district in the parliament. Every candidate who wins one of Germany’s 299 constituencies – which are divided up per 250,000 inhabitants – is guaranteed a seat.
To fill the other half of the 598 seats in Germany’s Bundestag, voters cast their ballots in the second vote or “Zweitstimme.” This vote goes to a political party instead of a single candidate. It also determines the percentage each political party gets in the Bundestag.
German states with larger populations get to send more representatives to the Bundestag than the smaller ones.
What makes the elections particularly interesting is that the ballot allows voters to split their vote amongst parties, perhaps voting for their local CDU candidate in the first vote, but casting their ballot for the Liberal Democrat FDP in the second vote, to help the CDU’s traditional small coalition partner to get into parliament.
‘Overhang’ seats
Sometimes, a party will receive more direct parliament seats through the first vote than they deserve according to the party vote. Since each candidate who wins a district is guaranteed a seat, the party gets to maintain those “overhang” seats.
Other parties then also get more seats to make up for this, ultimately making the parliament larger than its base number of 598 seats.
Due to this, there are currently 630 seats in the Bundestag.
‘The 5 percent hurdle’
In order for a party to enter the Bundestag, it has to win at least 5 percent of the second vote. This system was put in place to prevent smaller splinter parties – like those that bogged down the Weimar Republic in the 1920s – from entering parliament.
The “five percent hurdle” has served to keep the far-right NPD and other extremist parties out of the Bundestag until now.
Currently, there are five parties represented in the Bundestag: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right CDU and its Bavarian sister-party the Christian Social Union (CSU), the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Left Party and the Greens.
There are two key 5 percent threshold races to watch in the German elections this year: In 2013, the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) failed to make the 5 percent hurdle but may be able to reenter parliament this time around based on recent state election wins.
The other party to watch out for is the right-wing populist anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) which also failed narrowly to enter the Bundestag in 2013, when they had been campaigning on a euroskeptic platform. Since then, however, the party has gathered enough support to have a presence not only in the European Parliament, but also in 13 out of Germany’s 16 state parliaments
Who picks the chancellor?
Unlike the presidential system in the United States, voters in Germany do not directly elect the chancellor, who is the head of the government. The new parliament must convene for the first time no later than one month after the vote.
It can be earlier if coalition talks go swiftly. The top candidate from the party that wins the most votes usually manages to forge a coalition. The president, who is the head of state and plays a largely ceremonial role, then presents this person as candidate for chancellor, who the newly-elected members of parliament then approve in a secret ballot.
If, as in the previous three elections, the CDU wins the majority of the vote, their candidate for chancellor, Angela Merkel, will hold the post for the next four years. In Germany there is no limit to the number of terms a chancellor may be in office. But so far no chancellor has served more than 16 years in total since Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
The heavyweights
-- CDU: Founded after World War II, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union is the main conservative party, popular with the upper middle class and professionals.
Under Merkel, it has moved closer to the centre by adopting more leftist policies such as ending army conscription, scrapping nuclear power and opening the country's borders to refugees.
The party has shown loyalty to Merkel, in power for 12 years, but with no clear successor in sight critics have accused it of failing to prepare for the future.
-- CSU: The Christian Social Union is the CDU's more conservative sister party in the wealthy, staunchly traditional state of Bavaria. Its pugnacious leader Horst Seehofer was one of the loudest critics of Merkel's decision to take in hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in 2015.
The CSU aligns itself with the CDU at a national level. Together, they have been the leading partnersin most of Germany's post-war governments.
-- SPD: Germany's oldest party at more than 150 years old, the Social Democratic Party is the natural home of the working class and the country's powerful unions.
Supporters accused it of betrayal when an SPD-led government forced through punishing labour reforms at the start of this century. Those reforms have since been credited with helping Germany's economic boom.
The SPD has struggled to shine as the junior partner in Merkel's grand coalition these past four years, despite pushing through a minimum wage, gay marriage and measures for more equality in the workplace.
Hopes that new SPD chief Martin Schulz can turn the tide and replace Merkel as chancellor have fizzled out along with his brief surge in the polls.
Possible kingmakers
-- FDP: The pro-business Free Democratic Party stands for liberal values, espousing free market capitalism and individual freedoms. It has spent more time in government than any other party, always as the junior partner to either the CDU/CSU or the SPD.
But after a lacklustre stint governing in Merkel's shadow, it humiliatingly crashed out of the Bundestag in the last election.
The FDP is now hoping for a comeback under telegenic young leader Christian Lindner, although critics say the party's platform is too vague.
-- The Greens: With its roots in the 1970s pacifist, anti-nuclear movement, the Greens played a pioneering role in advocating for gay rights and the shift away from nuclear energy.
But the Greens have struggled to keep voters energised as their core issues have gone mainstream.
Currently polling in the single digits, some commentators predict the Greens will have to choose between staying in opposition or joining a Merkel-led government that could also include the FDP, dubbed a "Jamaica coalition" after each party's colours and the Caribbean country's flag.
Opposition voices
-- Die Linke: Founded by communists from former East Germany and SPD defectors, the fiercely pacifist, anti-corporate far-left Die Linke is Germany's main opposition party.
Despite making it into several regional governments, its radical demands for the dissolution of NATO and the end of German military deployments abroad mean it is an unlikely coalition member at national level.
-- AfD: The Alternative for Germany began life in 2013 as a eurosceptic party before morphing into an anti-Islam, anti-immigration outfit. After capitalising on widespread anger over Merkel's refugee influx, the right-wing populists won seats in 13 of Germany's 16 state parliaments.
But endless infighting and a recent slowdown in asylum arrivals have sapped support for the party. Nevertheless, it remains on track to enter the national parliament for the first time. Shunned by other parties, the AfD would be headed straight for the opposition benches
Germany's Political Parties
The heavyweights
-- CDU: Founded after World War II, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union is the main conservative party, popular with the upper middle class and professionals.
Under Merkel, it has moved closer to the centre by adopting more leftist policies such as ending army conscription, scrapping nuclear power and opening the country's borders to refugees.
The party has shown loyalty to Merkel, in power for 12 years, but with no clear successor in sight critics have accused it of failing to prepare for the future.
-- CSU: The Christian Social Union is the CDU's more conservative sister party in the wealthy, staunchly traditional state of Bavaria. Its pugnacious leader Horst Seehofer was one of the loudest critics of Merkel's decision to take in hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in 2015.
The CSU aligns itself with the CDU at a national level. Together, they have been the leading partnersin most of Germany's post-war governments.
-- SPD: Germany's oldest party at more than 150 years old, the Social Democratic Party is the natural home of the working class and the country's powerful unions.
Supporters accused it of betrayal when an SPD-led government forced through punishing labour reforms at the start of this century. Those reforms have since been credited with helping Germany's economic boom.
The SPD has struggled to shine as the junior partner in Merkel's grand coalition these past four years, despite pushing through a minimum wage, gay marriage and measures for more equality in the workplace.
Hopes that new SPD chief Martin Schulz can turn the tide and replace Merkel as chancellor have fizzled out along with his brief surge in the polls.
Possible kingmakers
-- FDP: The pro-business Free Democratic Party stands for liberal values, espousing free market capitalism and individual freedoms. It has spent more time in government than any other party, always as the junior partner to either the CDU/CSU or the SPD.
But after a lacklustre stint governing in Merkel's shadow, it humiliatingly crashed out of the Bundestag in the last election.
The FDP is now hoping for a comeback under telegenic young leader Christian Lindner, although critics say the party's platform is too vague.
-- The Greens: With its roots in the 1970s pacifist, anti-nuclear movement, the Greens played a pioneering role in advocating for gay rights and the shift away from nuclear energy.
But the Greens have struggled to keep voters energised as their core issues have gone mainstream.
Currently polling in the single digits, some commentators predict the Greens will have to choose between staying in opposition or joining a Merkel-led government that could also include the FDP, dubbed a "Jamaica coalition" after each party's colours and the Caribbean country's flag.
Opposition voices
-- Die Linke: Founded by communists from former East Germany and SPD defectors, the fiercely pacifist, anti-corporate far-left Die Linke is Germany's main opposition party.
Despite making it into several regional governments, its radical demands for the dissolution of NATO and the end of German military deployments abroad mean it is an unlikely coalition member at national level.
-- AfD: The Alternative for Germany began life in 2013 as a eurosceptic party before morphing into an anti-Islam, anti-immigration outfit. After capitalising on widespread anger over Merkel's refugee influx, the right-wing populists won seats in 13 of Germany's 16 state parliaments.
But endless infighting and a recent slowdown in asylum arrivals have sapped support for the party. Nevertheless, it remains on track to enter the national parliament for the first time. Shunned by other parties, the AfD would be headed straight for the opposition benches
No comments:
Post a Comment