The federal German elections preliminary count shows that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with the Christian Social Union (CSU) won 28.6% of the vote in Germany. Second place goes to the extreme right party of Germany, Alternative for Germany (AFD). The former combined government of the Greens and the Social Democrats (SPD) won 11.6% and 16.4% respectively. The Free Democratic Party did not meet the threshold of 5% of the votes to earn seats in the lower house of Germany’s parliament as they only won 4.3% of the votes. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) almost met the threshold with them having 4.97% of the votes. Finally, the Left Party got 8.8% of the votes with the remaining 4.6% of the votes to multiple different parties. The Left Party made a major comeback after years of a major decline of votes. They were able to do this by using social media to advertise themselves to the younger generation. These voters were concerned about the ideals of the far right parties ,but did not want to vote for the Greens or the SPD. The Left Party has its roots in the old communist party of East Germany. The election has not been going so smoothly for other parties however. The olden German political party SPD have recorded their lowest number of votes in over a century. This election also recorded the largest loss of votes between the previous elections for the SPD. If this was not bad enough, former chancellor of Germany and prominent SPD member Olaf Scholz announced that he would not be serving in the government. The Greens also faced a 3% loss after their miraculous rise in the 2021 elections. Reasons contributing to these losses could be high energy prices in Germany, them taking too long to adopt renewable energy policies, or them putting too much focus on the issue of migration. Their loss of votes actually benefited the Left party who received 700,000 votes from the Greens. The biggest winner of these elections however was the AFD. They have nearly doubled their votes from the previous election. Their chancellor candidate Alice Weidel has even been praised by Tesla C.E.O Elon Musk on her tough stance on migration in Germany. For Germany as a whole, these elections saw many voters turn up. In Fact, the election had a record breaking 82.5% voter turnout.
Bundestag Elections happen every 4 years with people over 18 being qualified to vote. From 8:00 A.M. till 6:00 P.M., they cast the votes into ballot boxes. These votes do not directly count towards who becomes Chancellor ,but they do influence who becomes the Chancellor. The people of Germany cast 2 votes. The first vote goes to a candidate in the voter’s respective electoral districts. The second vote goes to a political party in Germany. This goes to determine how the seats in the Bundestag are divided up. However, if a party does not reach a total of 5% of the total second votes or win 3 electoral districts from the first vote, they would not be represented in the Bundestag.
Written by Samarth Irani
