Federal elections in Germany will be held to elect the members of the 21st Bundestag. They are currently scheduled to be held on 28 September 2025. However, the elections are expected to be brought forward to 23 February due to the collapse of the governing traffic light coalition during the 2024 German government crisis. If held early, the 2025 election would be the fourth snap election in the history of post-war Germany after those in 1972, 1983 and 2005.
Scholz announced that he would submit a motion of confidence to the Bundestag on 11 December 2024, which is expected to be brought to a vote on 16 December.[5] If the Bundestag does not give him a majority vote of confidence, he can propose a dissolution of the Bundestag to President Steinmeier. The President is not obliged to grant one, but in the likely case he chooses to do so, the governing parties and the opposition CDU/CSU have agreed to recommend 23 February 2025 as the date for the snap election.[6][7][8]
Electoral system
Date assignment
The Basic Law and the Federal Election Act provide that federal elections must be held on a Sunday or on a national holiday[e] no earlier than 46 and no later than 48 months after the first sitting of a Bundestag, unless the Bundestag is dissolved earlier. The 20th and sitting Bundestag held its first sitting on 26 October 2021.[9] Therefore, the next election must take place on a Sunday between 31 August 2025 and 26 October 2025, with 28 September being scheduled.
Federal elections can be held earlier if the president of Germany dissolves the Bundestag and schedules a snap election. They may only do so under two possible scenarios described by the Basic Law.
If the Bundestag fails to elect a chancellor with an absolute majority of its members on the 15th day after the first ballot of a chancellor's election, the president is free to either appoint the candidate who received a plurality of votes as chancellor or to dissolve the Bundestag (in accordance with Article 63, Section 4 of the Basic Law).
If the chancellor loses a confidence motion, they may ask the president to dissolve the Bundestag. The president is free to grant or to deny the chancellor's request (in accordance with Article 68 of the Basic Law).
In both cases, federal elections would have to take place on a Sunday or national holiday no later than 60 days after the dissolution.[10][11][f]
Process
Germany has a mixed-member proportional electoral system. Voters have two votes: the first vote is used to directly elect a candidate in their own constituency, and the second vote is for a party's electoral list. To enter the Bundestag, a party must either get five percent of the nationwide second vote (the Fünf-Prozent-Hürde, five-percent hurdle) or the most votes in three constituencies; both cases result in that party receiving seats proportional to its nationwide share of the second vote.
2023 reform
Prior to this election, if a party won more constituency seats than its proportional entitlement, it was allowed to keep the so-called overhang seats. The addition of leveling seats for other parties, in order to keep the composition of hte Bundestag proportional, led to a large amount of additional seats in 2017 and 2021.
After the 2021 election produced a Bundestag with 736 members – which made it the largest freely elected parliament in the world – renewed debate began over the system that had been in place since the 2013 election. The Bundestag passed a reform law in March 2023 to fix the size of future Bundestags at 630 members. It introduced two changes: The seat distribution would be determined solely through each party's share of the second vote (Zweitstimmendeckung, "second vote coverage") and the elimination of the three-constituency rule (Grundmandatsklausel, "basic mandate clause"). Parties are no longer allowed to keep overhang seats; if a party wins overhang seats in a state, constituency winners are excluded from the Bundestag in decreasing order of their first vote share.[12]
Both the CSU and The Left opposed the law due to the elimination of the basic mandate clause. In the 2021 election, The Left fell short of the five-percent threshold but remained in the Bundestag because it won three constituencies, whereas the CSU barely crossed the threshold with 5.2% of the nationwide second vote while winning 45 constituencies in Bavaria. Both parties appealed to President Steinmeier to veto it; nevertheless, Steinmeier signed the bill after personally determining he believed it was constitutional.[13][14] Both party organizations, as well as the government of Bavaria controlled by the CSU, filed formal complaints to the Federal Constitutional Court.[15][16]
Hearings were held on 23 and 24 April 2024. On 30 July 2024, the court largely upheld the new electoral law. However, it ruled that a five-percent threshold without any exceptions is unconstitutional; though it recognized the threshold is necessary to prevent fragmentation, it held there must be measures to minimize wasted votes. In order to settle electoral law in sufficient time for this election, the court did not order the Bundestag to modify the law and instead re-introduced the basic mandate clause as an interim measure. The Bundestag is free to change, reduce, or abolish the five-percent hurdle (in conformance with the ruling) for future elections.[12]
In contrast to the 2021 election, the Kanzlerfrage (chancellor question) for the CDU/CSU bloc was resolved relatively quickly. After good performances for the CDU in September 2024 state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, the two other prospective candidates – North Rhine-Westphalia Minister-President Hendrik Wüst and Bavaria Minister-President and CSU leader Markus Söder – expressed their full support for Friedrich Merz.[22][23] Söder was thought to pursue another attempt at the nomination; many CDU rank-and-file, however, saw him in a negative light after a months-long battle with Armin Laschet for the nomination in 2021, followed by personal attacks on Laschet that were seen as undermining the Union campaign, as well as his categorical ruling-out of any coalition with the Greens after this election.[24] (The CSU has still only provided the Union bloc's lead candidate twice: in 1980 and 2002.)
At The Left's party convention in October, former lead candidate Gregor Gysi announced an effort called Mission Silberlocke ("Mission Silver Locks") to bolster the party's prospects in the face of infighting and faltering polling. Gysi committed to run for re-election in his constituency of Berlin-Treptow – Köpenick, with former parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch running for a third time in Rostock – Landkreis Rostock II and outgoing Minister-President of ThuringiaBodo Ramelow – the only Left member to have led a state government – contesting a Bundestag seat for the first time in Erfurt – Weimar – Weimarer Land II. The goal is to capitalize on the three men's relatively high personal popularities and give The Left the best chance possible to win three constituencies and ensure they remain in the Bundestag, and the effort is nicknamed in humorous reference to the their advanced ages. Party leader Schwerdtner is also running in the stronghold of Berlin-Lichtenberg and parliamentary group leader Sören Pellmann is seeking re-election in Leipzig II, which are both seen as likely holds for The Left. Experts also rated Gysi and Ramelow as favorites to win their respective constituencies, which combined would retain the bloc's representation.[25][26]
In November, various SPD legislators and leading figures – most prominently former party leader Sigmar Gabriel – began publicly calling for defence ministerBoris Pistorius to be designated the party's chancellor candidate owing to its and Scholz's poor polling.[27] Polling for ARD showed Pistorius as the most favorably viewed national politician: 60% of voters thought he would be a good chancellor, compared to 42% for Merz and 21% for Scholz.[28] In a video released on 21 November, Pistorius ended what had become two weeks of public debate by disavowing any interest in running for chancellor and expressing his full support for Scholz.[29] Such a protracted and public debate, and party leadership's apparent inability to quickly control or restrain it, was seen as embarrassing and damaging; Jusos president Philipp Türmer directly called out Esken and Klingbeil for the "shitshow" at their national congress the following weekend. Nonetheless, Scholz was unanimously renominated as chancellor candidate by the party's executive on 25 November, which will be confirmed at the party's national convention in January.[30]
FDP "D-Day" paper
On 15 November, Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung independently reported that the FDP had been planning a strategy to break the coalition for several weeks.[31][32] They reported on the existence of a detailed working paper which used controversial militaristic language: the 18-page economic report that resulted in Lindner's firing was called "the torpedo", and the upcoming election campaign was described as "open battle". Most contentious was that the day of its publication was referred to as "D-Day" – which in German is used exclusively in reference to the Allied invasion of Normandy and has a violent connotation, whereas the equivalent generic term for "decision day" would be Tag X. The use of the language of war to refer to the political process led to heavy criticism.[33][34]
This also contradicted Lindner's assertion that the end of the government was a "calculated break" on the part of Scholz.[33] Criticism came from the SPD upon the revelation that their coalition partner had apparently not been acting in good faith for weeks: parliamentary leader Rolf Mützenich described himself as "feeling deceived and disappointed" and "horrified" by the controversial language.[35] In an 18 November interview with RTL and n-tv, FDP general secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai flatly denied the use of the term "D-Day" and stated the party's leadership was not aware of the paper. Lindner did not deny the paper's existence but simply replied to reporters "We are in a campaign. Where is the news here?"[35]
Media speculation continued as to what degree the FDP was responsible for the coalition's end. On the morning of 28 November, the online news portal Table.Media published excerpts of an 8-page document alleged to be the working paper; it was indeed titled "D-Day Scenarios and Actions" and laid out a strategy as detailed as the original reporting surmised, including strategies to undermine the coalition, communication tactics, and pre-written quotations for Lindner. SZ confronted party leaders with the excerpts and gave them a 1:30 p.m. deadline to respond to questions. The party did not, but instead officially released the full paper at 6 p.m. with a statement from Djir-Sarai claiming it was "to prevent false impressions...of the paper" by the media.[36]
According to the party, the paper was first prepared by Federal Managing Director Carsten Reymann on 24 October "to deal with the questions surrounding how the exit of the FDP from the government could be communicated", and the "purely technical paper" was not presented to legislators or members of the government.[37] Djir-Sarai and Reymann resigned the next day to take responsibility for the paper's contents. SPD acting general secretary Matthias Miersch described Djir-Sarai as "a transparent sacrificial lamb" to protect Lindner and called it "unimaginable" that the party leader would not know of the paper's existence.[38] In a written statement released that evening, Lindner again denied any knowledge of the paper and stated he would not have approved of it, and that it was only circulated among internal party staffers and not any elected officials.[39]
^Scholz is the designated candidate for Chancellor. The SPD's co-leaders are Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil.
^Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck are co-lead candidates, while Habeck is candidate for Chancellor as "Candidate for the people in Germany" (German: Kandidat für die Menschen in Deutschland).
^Only SPD and Grüne remained in government following Christian Lindner's dismissal.
^Kornmeier, Claudia (17 March 2023). "Was das neue Wahlrecht vorsieht?" [What the new electoral law provides?]. tagesschau.de (in German). Archived from the original on 8 June 2023. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
^Deiß, Matthias. "So begründet Habeck seine Kanzlerkandidatur" [This is how Habeck justifies his candidacy for chancellor]. tagesschau.de (in German). Archived from the original on 8 November 2024. Retrieved 8 November 2024.
^Wendler, Achim (17 September 2024). "Warum Söders Kalkül nicht aufging?" [Why did Söder’s calculation not work out?]. tagesschau.de (in German). Archived from the original on 1 October 2024.
^Krach, Wolfgang; Mascolo, Georg; Richter, Nicolas; Roßbach, Henrike (15 November 2024). "Wie die FDP das Ende der Ampel-Koalition geplant hat?" [How the FDP planned the end of the traffic light coalition?]. Süddeutsche.de (in German). Archived from the original on 15 November 2024.
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