2013 German federal election
Federal elections were held on 22 September to elect the members of the 18th Bundestag of Germany. At stake were all 598 seats to the Bundestag, plus 33 overhang seats determined thereafter. The Christian Democratic Union of Germany/Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CDU/CSU) of incumbent chancellor Angela Merkel won their best result since 1990 with nearly 42% of the vote and nearly 50% of the seats, just five short for an overall majority. The Free Democratic Party (FDP) failed to meet the 5% vote electoral threshold in what was their worst showing ever in a federal election, denying them seats in the Bundestag for the first time in their history.
Image: Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel bei einer Wahlkampfveranstaltung 2013 (Recortada)
Image: Next Peer Steinbrück (SPD) (cropped)
Image: Gregor Gysi (2013)
Image: German Greens leadership 2013
The Bundestag is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people, comparable to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The Bundestag was established by Title III of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 as one of the legislative bodies of Germany and thus it is the historical successor to the earlier Reichstag.
Bundestag
The German Unity Flag is a national memorial to German reunification that was raised on 3 October 1990; it waves in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin, seat of the Bundestag.
Bundestag ballot from the 2005 election in the Würzburg district. The column for the constituency vote (with the name, occupation, and address of each candidate) is on the left in black print; the column for the party list vote (showing top five list candidates in the state) is on the right in blue print.
The Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, one of the official buildings of the complex, housing the parliamentary library