Understanding Issues in Comparative Politics

Germany's 2009 Election

Political Science 111

Mary Baldwin College, Staunton VA 24401

by Prof. Gordon L. Bowen, Ph.D.

Announcement: Germany held its general election on Sunday Sept. 27, 2009, and Chancellor Angela Merkel (above left) led her Christian Democratic Party to victory (link to her victory speech and celebration, dubbed into English).  Parliamentary election results for the Bundestag (i.e., German lower house) according to figures released the next day by the German electoral authorities indicated that her party (the CDU/CSU) won 33.8 percent of the popular vote.  Merkel formed a Government in coalition with the Free Democratic Party (FDP), which won 14.6 percent of the popular vote.  The 2009-2013 Bundestag has 622 seats with the governing coalition holding 385 of them (see charts, below).  FDP Leader Guido Westerwelle (above right) became foreign minister, following tradition.  (The opposition parties are the Social Democratic Party with 23 percent of the popular vote, the Left Party with 11.9 percent of the popular vote, and the Green Party with 10.7 percent of the popular vote (unofficial figures from the German Government website).  The German election system is a somewhat complicated fusion of direct election in single member districts and proportional representation of parties' nationwide support.  The electoral system is built around a two ballot method in which voters cast one vote for their district's representative, and one vote for a party.  Seats are distributed to parties according to the second or party list vote for parties, with only those parties that receive 5% of the overall nationwide party vote receiving seats.  For complete explanation of the rules, follow this link.

source for graphs above: http://www7.dw-world.de/bw2009/dw_bw_de/html_php/index_en_dw.html

For information on a district-by-district basis, including results for all parties in each of the 299 districts, go to:

http://www7.dw-world.de/bw2009/dw_bw_de/html_php/index_en_dw.html To view an interactive map with the exact result by party for each of the districts, follow that link and then click on the word "constituencies" on that page.  It's in gray print, near the top of the page, just under the blue box that says "Opinion Surveys" in the page layout.

2009 Election by District:  Only three parties won seats by finishing first in a district.  The map above shows in Red where the SPD won (chiefly in areas of northern Germany, and in some parts of the former East Germany.  Districts won by the Left Party are shown in Purple.  Every other district was won by the conservative coalition, with CDU victories in darker gray and CSU victories in lighter gray.  The CSU won every district in Bavaria.

 

 

The fate of the parties:

The SPD party (vote strength depicted above) remained much stronger in northern areas of Germany than in southern Germany, but overall the party's support fell dramatically in 2009.  Their 2009 national vote percentage fell 11.2 percent compared to the 2005 general election.  In terms of seats won, the SPD won 146 members of the Bundestag for 2009-2013, compared to 222 during 2005-09.

The CDU / CSU coalition of conservative parties also lost 1.2 percent of its nationwide support between 2005 and 2009 general elections.  But their 239 seats won were an increase of 13 over the 226 held 2005-09.  In coalition with the FDP to govern between 2009 and 2013, the CDU/CSU will have a stable governing majority for their coalition government.

   

 

Empty thunder on the right (above):  The NPD, a neo-Nazi party, won no more than 5.5 percent in any district, and finished with less than one percent of the vote (0.8 percent) nationwide.  It's vote was concentrated in areas of the former east Germany, and its best showing of 5.5 percent was in Gorlitz on the border of Poland, as is illustrated in the chart above.

Real Gains by the Left Party: Support for the Left Party, a collection of former communists and disgruntled former SPD supporters, remained concentrated chiefly in constituencies in the former east Germany, but the party did also show significant support in the Saar region, winning 24 percent in Saarbruken and about 20 percent in three other Saarland constituencies near the French border.  Nationwide, the Left Party improved on its 2005 level of support, posting 11.9 percent in 2009 nationwide.

 Separate from the election to the Bundestag (above), the German legislature has an upper house, the Bundesrat.  Its 69 delegates represent the 16 states of Germany (or lander), each of which has an elected government that is chosen separately, and on a different schedule, from that of the national government.  Bundesrat delegates are chosen by states' governments, and each delegation votes as a bloc as instructed by each state's governing party.  In 2009, the CDU/CSU controlled a majority of the states, and thus the composition of the Bundesrat was as follows:

Current composition

  Land Population Votes Coalitions Minister-president Mandates
Wappen Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg 10,736,000   6   █ █ █ █ █ █ CDU and FDP Günther Oettinger (CDU)  
Wappen Bayern Bavaria 12,469,000   6   █ █ █ █ █ █ CSU and FDP Horst Seehofer (CSU)  
Wappen Berlin Berlin 3,395,000   4   █ █ █ █ SPD and The Left Klaus Wowereit (SPD)  
Wappen Brandenburg Brandenburg 2,559,000   4   █ █ █ █ SPD and CDU Matthias Platzeck (SPD)  
Wappen Bremen Bremen 663,000   3   █ █ █ SPD and Greens Jens Böhrnsen (SPD)  
Wappen Hamburg Hamburg 1,744,000   3   █ █ █ CDU and Greens Ole von Beust (CDU)  
Wappen Hessen Hesse 6,092,000   5   █ █ █ █ █ CDU and FDP Roland Koch (CDU)  
Wappen Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 1,707,000   3   █ █ █ SPD and CDU Erwin Sellering (SPD)  
Wappen Niedersachsen Lower Saxony 7,994,000   6   █ █ █ █ █ █ CDU and FDP Christian Wulff (CDU)  
Wappen Nordrhein-Westfalen North Rhine-Westphalia 18,058,000   6   █ █ █ █ █ █ CDU and FDP Jürgen Rüttgers (CDU)  
Wappen Rheinland-Pfalz Rhineland-Palatinate 4,059,000   4   █ █ █ █ SPD Kurt Beck (SPD)  
Wappen Saarland Saarland 1,050,000   3   █ █ █ CDU Peter Müller (CDU)  
Wappen Sachsen Saxony 4,274,000   4   █ █ █ █ CDU and SPD Stanislaw Tillich (CDU)  
Wappen Sachsen-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt 2,470,000   4   █ █ █ █ CDU and SPD Wolfgang Böhmer (CDU)  
Wappen Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein 2,833,000   4   █ █ █ █ CDU and SPD Peter Harry Carstensen (CDU)  
Wappen Thüringen Thuringia 2,335,000   4   █ █ █ █ CDU Dieter Althaus (CDU)  
  Totals 82,438,000 69    

 

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