Federal elections took place on 27 September 2009 to elect the members of the 17th Bundestag (parliament) of Germany. Preliminary results showed that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU),its Bavarian sister party,the Christian Social Union (CSU),and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) won the election,and the three parties announced their intention to form a new centre-right government with Angela Merkel as Chancellor. Their main opponent,Frank-Walter Steinmeier's Social Democratic Party (SPD),conceded defeat. The Christian Democrats previously governed in coalition with the FDP in most of the 1949–1966 governments of Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard and the 1982–1998 governments of Helmut Kohl.
Dietmar Gerhard Bartsch is a German politician who has served as co-chair of The Left parliamentary group in the Bundestag since 2015. Prior,he served as federal treasurer of The Left from 2006 to 2009 and federal managing officer from 2005 to 2010. He was a prominent member of The Left's predecessor party,the PDS,of which he served as treasurer from 1991 to 1997 and federal managing officer from 1997 to 2002.
Hubertus Heil is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who has been serving as Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in the fourth cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel since 14 March 2018.
Olaf Scholz is a German politician and the current candidate for Chancellor of Germany of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Scholz has served as Vice-Chancellor to Angela Merkel and as minister of Finance since March 2018. He previously served as the first mayor of Hamburg from 2011 to 2018 and was the deputy leader of the Social Democratic Party from 2009 to 2019. Scholz is widely considered to be the most likely next Chancellor of Germany,currently in negotiations on a coalition with The Greens and the Free Democratic Party (FDP).
Parliamentwatch (abgeordnetenwatch.de) is an Internet portal that allows German citizens to question their representatives in the German parliament publicly. The independent,nonpartisan site aims to increase transparency in government and deepen German democracy. Questions and answers are published,as well as the voting records of the deputies. Users of the site can contact representatives of the Bundestag,German deputies of the European Parliament and of the German federal states.
The Progressive Alliance (PA) is a political international of social democratic and progressive political parties and organisations founded on 22 May 2013 in Leipzig,Germany. The alliance was formed as an alternative to the existing Socialist International,of which many of its member parties are former or current members. The Progressive Alliance claims 140 participants from around the world.
The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany was a short-lived political party in Germany during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of anti-war members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD),from the left of the party as well as the centre and the right. The organization attempted to chart a course between electorally oriented reformism on the one hand and Bolshevist revolutionism on the other. The organization was terminated in 1931 through merger with the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD).
Matthias Bartke is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who served as a member of the German Bundestag from 2013 to 2021. From January 2016 held the position of legal advisor and thus a member of the executive board of the SPD Parliamentary Group.
Kurt Rosenfeld was a German lawyer and politician (SPD). He was a member of the national parliament ("Reichstag") between 1920 and 1932.
Johanna Uekermann is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). She served as chairwoman of the Young Socialists in the SPD (Jusos) from 2013 to 2017 and as Deputy Leader of the SPD Bayern from 2017 until 2021
The Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany was the name officially used by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) during the period 1917-1922. This differentiated it from the more left wing Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany. Nevertheless they were often simply called the SPD.
Lars Klingbeil is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party,who has been the General Secretary of the Social Democratic Party since 8 December 2017. Since 2001 he has been a member of the City Council of Munster and a member of the District Council of Heide. He was a Member of the Bundestag for about 9 months in 2005 and has been a member again since the 2009 Federal Election. From 2003 till 2007,Klingbeil was the Deputy Leader of the Jusos,the SPD youth wing. Klingbeil is a member of the Seeheim Circle,the right wing of the SPD,which shares many similarities with Tony Blair's New Labour.
The SPD party member vote on the 2018 coalition agreement of Germany took place from 20 February to 2 March 2018. The membership of the center-left SPD decided via postal vote whether to accept a coalition agreement with Germany's center-right CDU and CSU. The result,66.02% in favor of the Yes campaign,was published on 4 March 2018. It was decisive for Angela Merkel's plan to get re-elected as chancellor of Germany on 14 March in the German Bundestag.
Kevin Kühnert is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who has been serving as a member of the German Bundestag since the 2021 elections,representing Berlin Tempelhof –Schöneberg.
The Leader of the Social Democratic Party is the most senior political figure within the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Since December 2019,the office has been held jointly by Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans.
Florian Pronold is a German lawyer and politician of the SPD who served as member of the German Bundestag from 2002 until 2021. From 11 July 2009 to 20 May 2017,he was state chairman of the SPD Bavaria. Since 17 December 2013,Pronold has been Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for the Environment,Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The 2019 Social Democratic Party of Germany leadership election took place in the autumn of 2019 to elect the new leadership of the Social Democratic Party of Germany following the resignation of the Andrea Nahles on 3 June 2019. Although the leader(s) of the party are elected indirectly by a party convention,for the first time since 1993 the SPD held a vote by the membership to decide the candidate(s) which the party's executive board will propose to the party convention. Though the convention is not obliged to elect the proposed candidates,the membership vote is considered politically binding.
Nina Scheer is a German lawyer and politician of the SPD who has been a member of the Bundestag since 2013. Her political interests include energy policy and climate change. In 2019,Scheer was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2019 Social Democratic Party of Germany leadership election,in a team with Karl Lauterbach. Her father was Hermann Scheer,also a SPD Bundestag member.
Ute Vogt is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as a member of the Bundestag from 1994 to 2005 and from 2009 to 2021.
Michael Hartmann is a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He was a member of the German Bundestag from 2002 to 2017. Hartmann is a specialist politician for internal security and was the domestic policy spokesman of the SPD parliamentary group as well as the chairman of his parliamentary group in the Committee on Internal Affairs and a member of the Parliamentary Oversight Panel.
