Results of German Elections

The Federal Returning Officer (Bundeswahlleiter) released the official provisional result of the elections to the 16th German Bundestag held on 18 September 2005:

• SPD: 34.3 % (2002: 38.5 %),
• CDU: 27.8 % (2002: 29.5 %),
• CSU: 7.4 % (2002: 9.0 %),
• GRÜNE: 8.1 % (2002: 8.6 %),
• FDP: 9.8 % (2002: 7.4 %),
• Die Linke: 8.7 %(2002: 4.0 %) and
• Others: 3.8 % (2002: 3.0 %).

This results in following numbers of seats, including overhang mandates. They result from the German election system (read more about them here):

• SPD: 222 seats (2002: 251), including 145 constituencies (2002: 171),
• CDU: 179 seats (2002: 190), including 105 constituencies (2002: 82),
• CSU: 46 seats (2002: 58), including 44 constituencies (2002: 43),
• GRÜNE: 51 seats (2002: 55), including 1 constituencies (2002: 1),
• FDP: 61 seats (2002: 47), including - constituencies (2002: 0),
• Die Linke.: 54 seats (2002: 2), including 3 constituencies (2002: 2).

This does not result in a clear majority of any obvious coalition. But several combinations are possible. The result of the coalition talks might be surprising, but for that it is as true as for the elections itself: The government always wins.