Party vote share
Parties
SPD – Social Democrats
Traditional centre-left party which led the outgoing coalition under chancellor Olaf Scholz
CDU/CSU – Christian Democrats
The main conservative party, formerly led by Angela Merkel
Die Grünen – Greens
A major German party and junior partner in the outgoing coalition
AfD – Far-right nationalists
Far-right populists who campaign on immigration and Euroscepticism
BSW - Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance
Left-wing populists led by Sahra Wagenknecht
FDP – Liberals
Small but influential 'pro-business' party who provoked the election by undermining the outgoing coalition
Die Linke – The Left
Left-wing populists with links to the Communist party of the old East Germany, which is still their main base
Full constituency results
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Possible coalitions
Vote share by party
No divide was as stark as the old divide between East and West Germany; the AfD were most dominant in the old East, and the CDU in the old West. The CSU, the Bavarian wing of the CDU, carried more than 30% of nearly every seat it contested.
The Left and the Greens did best in urban seats, in the former case possibly because of student votes.
The SPD had a bad night, but their vote held up best in their traditional heartlands in northern and western Germany.
The BSW vote distribution is interesting in that it doesn't match that of the Left, the party it split from and seemed to have eclipsed. Instead its vote was concentrated in places where the AfD did well; rural and post-industrial areas of the old East.
How the election works
In elections to the Bundestag, or federal parliament, German voters cast two votes. The “first vote” is to elect a “direct” representative for their local constituency, much like in a British election: the candidate with the most votes wins the seat, except in some rare cases.
The “second vote” is for a party list, as in many European countries. The refinement of the German system is that the overall membership of the Bundestag is designed to be proportional to the second vote.
There are two last details that affect the assignment of seats. The first is that a party needs to cross a 5% threshold in the second vote to get party list seats. So in reality, the seats are awarded proportionally to the parties that do cross the threshold, based on their share of “successful” second votes. The other detail is that a party that wins three or more seats in the first vote, or which represents one of a small number of recognised minority ethnic groups, does not have to meet the 5% threshold.
Once the calculations are complete, the parties typically spend a number of weeks in coalition negotiations. Only when these are complete does the Bundestag vote to elect the chancellor.
