German federal election, 2017

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search
German federal election, 2017

← 2013 24 September 2017

All 598+ seats in the Bundestag
300+ seats needed for a majority
  160x160px 160x160px 160x160px
Leader Angela Merkel Martin Schulz Sahra Wagenknecht &
Dietmar Bartsch
Party CDU/CSU SPD Left
Leader since 10 April 2000 - -
Leader's seat Vorpommern-Rügen-Greifswald I Standing on the North Rhine Westphalia list North Rhine-Westphalia list &
Mecklenburg-West Pomerania list
Last election 311 seats, 41.5% 193 seats, 25.7% 64 seats, 8.6%

  160x160px 160x160px Frauke Petry 2015 (cropped).jpg
Leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt &
Cem Özdemir
Christian Lindner Frauke Petry
with Jörg Meuthen[1]
Party Green FDP AfD
Leader since - 7 December 2013 14 April 2013
Leader's seat Thuringia list &
Baden-Württemberg list
- -
Last election 63 seats, 8.4% 0 seats, 4.8% 0 seats, 4.7%

Incumbent Chancellor

Angela Merkel
CDU/CSU



The next German federal elections will elect the members of the Bundestag, the federal parliament of Germany, on 24 September 2017.

Background

At the previous federal election, in 2013, the incumbent government—composed of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU, the CDU's Bavarian sister party), 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 their 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]

Date

German law requires that the Bundestag election shall take place on a Sunday between 46–48 months after the assembly's first sitting. Since the 18th Bundestag first sat on 22 October 2013, the latest date for the next election would have been 22 October 2017 and the earliest date 27 August 2017, the first Sunday after 22 August 2017. By convention, recent elections have been held in late September, avoiding the school holidays. Elections can be held earlier under certain conditions, such as the government losing a confidence motion.

In January 2017, the election was scheduled for 24 September 2017.

Electoral system

The Bundestag has 598 nominal members, elected for a four-year term. Half, 299 members, are elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting, while a further 299 members are allocated from party lists to achieve a proportional distribution in the legislature, conducted according to a form of proportional representation called the Mixed member proportional representation system (MMP). 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. Seats are allocated using the Sainte-Laguë method. If a party receives more seats than its vote share entitles it to (overhang seats), additional "compensatory" seats are added to the total of 299 to give other parties a proportional number of seats.[3]

Voters have two votes, one for the candidate in the single-member constituency and one for the party list in the multi-member constituency.[3]

Parties and leaders

This is a list of the major parties participating in the election.

Party Ideology Leader(s)
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Christian democracy, Liberal conservatism Angela Merkel
Social Democratic Party (SPD) Social democracy Martin Schulz
The Left Democratic socialism, Left-wing populism Katja Kipping, Bernd Riexinger
Alliance '90/The Greens Green politics, Left-wing Cem Özdemir, Simone Peter
Christian Social Union (CSU) Bavarian regionalism, Christian democracy Horst Seehofer
Free Democratic Party (FDP) Liberalism, Classical liberalism Christian Lindner
Alternative for Germany (AfD) Right-wing populism, Euroscepticism Frauke Petry

Opinion polling

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

800px800px

References

<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

Cite error: Invalid <references> tag; parameter "group" is allowed only.

Use <references />, or <references group="..." />
  1. with Jörg Meuthen as co-chair of the AfD. Petry beat the former speaker Bernd Lucke in the leadership vote in the first round.
  2. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Electoral system IPU