The Christian Social Union in Bavaria is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. Having a regionalist identity, the CSU operates only in Bavaria while its larger counterpart, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), operates in the other fifteen states of Germany. It differs from the CDU by being somewhat more conservative in social matters, following Catholic social teaching. The CSU is considered the de facto successor of the Weimar-era Catholic Bavarian People's Party.
The Free Democratic Party is a liberal political party in Germany.
Germany is a democratic and federal parliamentary republic, where federal legislative power is vested in the Bundestag and the Bundesrat.
Alliance 90/The Greens, often simply referred to as Greens, is a green political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 by the merger of the Greens and Alliance 90. The Greens had itself merged with the East German Green Party after German reunification in 1990.
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together with Lars Klingbeil, who joined her in December 2021. After Olaf Scholz was elected chancellor in 2021, the SPD became the leading party of the federal government, which the SPD formed with the Greens and the Free Democratic Party, after the 2021 federal election. The SPD is a member of 11 of the 16 German state governments and is a leading partner in seven of them.
Federal elections were held in Germany on 16 October 1994 to elect the members of the 13th Bundestag. The CDU/CSU alliance led by Helmut Kohl remained the largest faction in parliament, with Kohl remaining Chancellor in a narrowly re-elected coalition with the Free Democratic Party (FDP). This elected Bundestag was the largest in history until 2017, numbering 672 members.
Federal elections were held in West Germany on 14 August 1949 to elect the members of the first Bundestag, with a further eight seats elected in West Berlin between 1949 and January 1952 and another eleven between February 1952 and 1953. They were the first free federal elections in West Germany since 1933 and the first after the division of the country.
The 2001 Hamburg state election was held on 23 September 2001 to elect the members of the 17th Hamburg Parliament. The incumbent coalition government of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Green Alternative List (GAL) led by First Mayor Ortwin Runde was defeated, ending 44 years of uninterrupted SPD rule in the city-state.
In German politics, a traffic light coalition is a coalition government of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Alliance 90/The Greens. It is named after the parties' traditional colours, respectively red, yellow, and green, matching the colour sequence of a traffic light (Ampel). The term is also used for similar coalitions between social democrats, liberals and greens in other countries.
The politics of Hesse takes place within a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the Federal Government of Germany exercises sovereign rights with certain powers reserved to the states of Germany including Hesse. The state has a multi-party system where, as in most other states of former Western Germany and the federal level, the three main parties are the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), and the centre-left Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
The government of Hamburg is divided into executive, legislative and judicial branches. Hamburg is a city-state and municipality, and thus its governance deals with several details of both state and local community politics. It takes place in two ranks – a citywide and state administration, and a local rank for the boroughs. The head of the city-state's government is the First Mayor and President of the Senate. A ministry is called Behörde (office) and a state minister is a Senator in Hamburg. The legislature is the state parliament, called Hamburgische Bürgerschaft, and the judicial branch is composed of the state supreme court and other courts. The seat of the government is Hamburg Rathaus. The President of the Hamburg Parliament is the highest official person of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. This is a traditional difference to the other German states. The president is not allowed to exert any occupation of the executive.
Grand coalition is a term in German politics describing a governing coalition of the parties Christian Democratic Union (CDU) along with its sister party the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), since they have historically been the major parties in most state and federal elections since 1949. The meaning of the term may change due to the growth of some formerly minor parties in recent years.
The 2009 Schleswig-Holstein state election was held on 27 September 2009 to elect the members of the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein. It was held on the same day as the 2009 federal election and the 2009 Brandenburg state election.
Hamburg-Eimsbüttel is an electoral constituency represented in the Bundestag. It elects one member via first-past-the-post voting. Under the current constituency numbering system, it is designated as constituency 20. It is located in northwestern Hamburg, comprising the Eimsbüttel borough.
Rüdiger Kruse is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as a member of the German Bundestag from 2009 to 2021.
The 2020 Hamburg state election was held on 23 February 2020 to elect the members of the 22nd Hamburg Parliament. The outgoing government was a coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and The Greens led by First Mayor Peter Tschentscher.
In Germany's federal electoral system, a single party or parliamentary group rarely wins an absolute majority of seats in the Bundestag, and thus coalition governments, rather than single-party governments, are the usually expected outcome of a German election. As German political parties are often associated with particular colors, coalitions are frequently given nicknames based on the colors included. Prominent political parties in Germany are the CDU/CSU (black), the SPD (red), the Greens (green), the Left, the AfD (blue), and the FDP (yellow).
The 1950 North Rhine-Westphalia state election was held on 18 June 1950 to elect the 2nd Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia. The outgoing government was a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Social Democratic Party (SPD), and Centre Party led by Minister-President Karl Arnold.
