2. Germany is a federal parliamentary democratic republic governed by a bicameral legislature: - Bundestag – the lower house - Bundesrat – the upper house The president has mainly representative and supervisory duties The main governing role is that of the state’s Chancellor It consists of 16 states, each of which has its own constitution

3. Elections take place every four years on a date scheduled by the President and must be on a Sunday or public holiday Elections are general, immediate, free, equal and secret Everybody who is over 18 and have resided in Germany for the last 3 months has a voting right

4. There are two votes: ‘First’ (i.e. vote for person) and ‘Second’ (i.e. vote for list) The ‘First’ is voting for a constituency representative. At the moment there are 299 constituencies in Germany. However, the first vote does not determine the power of the parties in the Parliament

5. The ‘Second’ vote is actually more important than the first one in terms of distributing the seats in the German Bundestag The 598 mandates are given to the parties who have achieved at least 5% of second votes. The proportion of seats is approximately equitable to the percentage of received votes. Second votes are not accounted for, if those electors give their votes to a successful and autonomous direct candidate.

6. If a party receives more direct mandates than proportional, all the successful constituency representatives gain additional seats in the Bunderstag, called ‘excess mandates’. If such a delegate resigns, his/her seat remains free and cannot be used by the following candidate on the party’s list.

7. Ensures that elected representatives are linked to geographical districts Creates two classes of legislators: one to be primarily responsible and beholden to a constituency and another one from the national party with no geographical ties Already proven to create stable governments Gives the possibility of new parties joining the Parliament Can be as proportional as pure proportional system

8. Can give rise to what are called ‘strategic voting’ anomalies which result in less seats for the dominant party than it has gained The additional seats may distort the proportional representation

9. Anella Merkel (Christian Democratic Union) was re- elected for a Chancellor Her CDU party continued its coalition with its sister party, the Christian Social Union, but replaced the Social Democratic Party with the pro-business Liberal Democratic Party Decisive factors then were the plans of tax-cutting measures, extending the lives of nuclear power plants and relaxing the employment rules

10. Through the regularly held polls it is expected that Chancellor Merkel’s CDU/CSU parties will be the leading ones again The main rivals are said to be the Social Democrats and the Greens