Politics of Germany

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Template:PoliticsGermany The Federal Republic of Germany (in German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland) is a federal representative democracy.

Its political system is laid out in the 1949 constitution, the Grundgesetz (Basic Law), which remained in effect with minor amendments after 1990's German Reunification. The constitution emphasizes the protection of individual liberty in an extensive catalogue of human rights and also divides powers both between the federal and state levels and between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. In many ways, the 1949 Grundgesetz is a strong response to the perceived flaws of the failed 1919 Weimar Republic, which collapsed in favour of the dictatorship of the Third Reich.

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Federalism

The Federal Republic (Bundesrepublik) consists of 16 federal states (Bundesl�nder). The Grundgesetz prescribes that legislature is to be handled by the states except where explicitly stated in the Grundgesetz itself. This principle has been more or less reversed in practice through many amendments of the constitution since 1949, leaving basically only police, education, cultural and communal affairs to be handled by state legislature. The executive branch, though, is still mainly organized at the state level, which means that laws that the state civil services operate under and enforce are to a large extent federal laws. This strengthens the states' role in federal legislation via the Bundesrat.

The political systems of the individual states are prescribed by state constitutions, but resemble that of the federal level to a certain extent. The heads of the federal states' governments are called Ministerpr�sidenten (Minister-President) or�in case of the three city-states�Regierender B�rgermeister (Governor-Mayor, in Berlin), Erster B�rgermeister (First Mayor, in Hamburg) or B�rgermeister und Pr�sident des Senats (Mayor and President of the Senate, in Bremen). They each form a state cabinet as well, although it is usually much smaller than the federal government. Elections for the parliaments of the Bundesl�nder occur every four to five years, depending on the state.

Federal institutions

The Bundeskanzler (Federal Chancellor) heads the Bundesregierung (Federal Cabinet) and thus the executive branch of the federal government. He is elected by and responsible to the Bundestag, Germany's parliament. Germany, like the United Kingdom, can thus be classified as a parliamentary system.

The Chancellor cannot be removed from office during a 4-year term unless the Bundestag has agreed on a successor. This Constructive Vote of No Confidence is intended to avoid the situation of the Weimar Republic in which the executive did not have enough support in the legislature to govern effectively, but the legislature was too divided to name a successor.

Except between 1969 and 1982, the Chancellor has always been the candidate of the party with the most seats in parliament, supported by a coalition of two or more parties with a majority in the parliament. He appoints a Vice-Chancellor (Vizekanzler), who is a member of his cabinet, usually the Foreign Minister. When there is a coalition government (which has, so far, always been the case, except for the period of 1957 to 1961), the Vice-Chancellor usually belongs to the smaller party of the coalition.

The heads of governments may change the structure of ministries whenever and however they see fit. For example, in the middle of January 2001, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture was renamed to Ministry of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture as a consequence of the BSE crisis. For that measure, competences from the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Health were transferred to the new Ministry of Consumer Protection.

Subordinate to the cabinet is the Civil service of Germany.

By contrast, the duties of the Bundespr�sident (Federal President) are largely representative and ceremonial; power is exercised by the Chancellor. The President is elected every 5 years on May 23 by the Federal Assembly (Bundesversammlung), a special body convoked only for this purpose, comprising the entire Bundestag and an equal number of state delegates selected especially for this purpose. In May 2004, [[Horst K�hler]] of the Christian Democratic Union was elected. The reason that the President is not popularly elected is to prevent him from gaining enough popular legitimacy to circumvent the constitution, as occurred with the Weimar Republic.

The Bundestag (Federal Diet) is Germany's parliament. It consists of at least 598 deputies elected to a 4-year term. Deputies are elected using the additional member system, a hybrid of proportional representation and the first-past-the-post system. A party must receive 5% of the national vote or win least three directly elected seats to be represented in the Bundestag. This rule, often called the "five percent hurdle", was incorporated into Germany's Election law to prevent political fragmentation and strong minor parties, which was considered a major reason for the inefficacy of the Weimar Republic's Reichstag. The first Bundestag elections were held in the Federal Republic of Germany ("West Germany") on August 14, 1949. Following Reunification, elections for the first all-German Bundestag were held on December 2, 1990. The last election was held on September 18, 2005, the new (16th) Bundestag is due to convene by mid-October. The number of Bundestag Deputies was reduced from 656 to 598 beginning in 2002, although under the additional member system, more deputies may be admitted if a party wins more directly elected seats than it would be entitled to under proportional representation. A total of 603 deputies were seated after the 2002 national elections.

The Bundesrat (Federal Council) is the representation of the state governments at the federal level. It consists of 69 members who are delegates of the 16 Bundesl�nder and usually, but not necessarily include the 16 Minister Presidents themselves. The L�nder each have from three to six votes in the Bundesrat, dependent on population. Bundesrat members receive voting instructions from their state governments.

The legislature has powers of exclusive jurisdiction and concurrent jurisdiction with the L�nder in areas specifically enumerated by the Basic Law. The Bundestag bears the major responsibility. The necessity for the Bundesrat to concur on legislation is limited to bills related to revenue shared by the federal and state governments and those imposing responsibilities on the states, although in practice, this means that Bundesrat concurrence is very often required.

Since the political orientation of the Bundesrat (which depends on the various state elections that occur independently of the federal ones) is quite frequently the opposite of that of the Bundestag, it has, in recent years, become more and more of a forum for the opposition parties, as opposed to one for state interests, as the constitution intended.

Germany has an independent judicial branch. Since the independence of the judiciary is historically older than democracy in Germany, the organization of courts is traditionally strong, and almost all state actions are subject to judicial review. Besides a so-called "ordinary" judicial branch that handles civil and criminal cases, which is in turn comprised of four levels of courts up to the Bundesgerichtshof in a fairly complex appeals system, there are separate branches for administrative, tax, labour, and social security issues, each with their own hierarchies. Courts are generally in the hands of the states, except for the highest courts of each branch, which are federal, respectively, to maintain a certain degree of unity in jurisdiction.

In addition, Germany has a powerful Constitutional Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht. This is somewhat unique since the Grundgesetz stipulates in principle that every person may file a complaint to that court when his constitutional rights, especially the human rights, have been violated by the state. Such actions can include laws passed by the legislative branch, court decisions, or acts of the administration. While in practice, only a small percentage of these constitutional complaints (Verfassungsbeschwerden) are successful, the Constitutional Court is known to frequently annoy both the executive and the legislative branches with far-reaching decisions. The Constitutional Court also handles several other procedures such as disputes between state institutions over their constitutional powers.

Political parties

(See List of political parties in Germany for more information)

The following parties currently participate in the Bundestag, sorted by the number of seats (refer to the following links for details):

Recent election issues

"Red-Green" vrs. Christian coalitions

In the 1998 election the SPD emphasized commitment to reducing persistently high unemployment and appealed to voters' desire for new faces after 16 years of Helmut Kohl's government. [[Gerhard Schr�der]] positioned himself as a centrist "Third Way" candidate in the mould of Britain's Tony Blair. The CDU/CSU stood on its record of economic performance and experience in foreign policy. The Kohl government was hurt at the polls by slower growth in the east in the past two years, widening the economic gap between east and west. The final margin of victory was sufficiently high to permit a "red-green" coalition of the SPD with the Greens, bringing the Greens into a national government for the first time.

The first months of the new government were marked by policy disputes between the moderate and traditional left wings of the SPD, resulting in some voter disaffection. The first state election after the federal election was held in Hesse in February, 1999.

The CDU increased its vote by 3.5 percent to emerge as the largest party, and was able to replace a SPD/Green coalition with a CDU/FDP coalition. The result was interpreted in part as a referendum on the federal government's proposed new citizenship law, which would have eased requirements for long-time foreign residents to obtain citizenship, and permitted them to retain their original citizenship as well.

In other state elections in 2000 and 2001, the respective SPD- or CDU-led coalition governments were re-elected into power.

Since 1998, the government has been built as a coalition of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and B�ndnis 90/Die Gr�nen. The chancellor is [[Gerhard Schr�der]] (SPD) and the vice-chancellor is Joschka Fischer (Green Party). The federal president is [[Horst K�hler]] (CDU).

The latest election for the Bundestag was September 22, 2002. Gerhard Schr�der led the coalition of SPD and Greens to an 11 seat victory over the conservative challengers headed by Edmund Stoiber (CSU).

The coalition treaty for the second red-green coalition was signed October 16, 2002. With a significantly changed cabinet (see below), Schr�der and Fischer began their second term.

Conservative comeback

In February 2003 elections took place in the states of Hesse and Lower Saxony, both leading to overwhelming victories for the conservatives. In Hesse, the CDU minister president Roland Koch was re-elected, with his party CDU gaining enough seats to govern without the former coalition partner FDP. In Lower Saxony, the former SPD minister president Sigmar Gabriel lost the elections, leading to an CDU-FDP-government headed by new minister president Christian Wulff (CDU). Both elections are seen as symptomatic for a widespread criticism against the current federal red-green government.

The protest against the Iraq war changed this situation a bit, favouring SPD and Greens.

The latest election in the state of Bavaria led to a landslide victory of the conservatives, gaining not just the majority (as usual), but two thirds of parliamentary seats.

In April 2003, chancellor Schr�der announced massive cuts in the social systems, called Agenda 2010. The changes include much-disputed reforms to the labour market and unemployment system, known as Hartz I - Hartz IV.

The European elections on June 13, 2004 brought a staggering defeat for the Social Democrats, who polled only slightly more than 21 percent, the lowest election result for the SPD in a nationwide election since the Second World War. Liberals, Greens, conservatives and the far left were the winners of the European election in Germany, because voters were disillusioned by high unemployment and cuts in social security, while the governing SPD party seems to be concerned with quarrels between the party wings and unable to give any clear direction. Many observers believe that this election marked the beginning of the end of the Schr�der government and indicates a process in which the SPD party seems to shrink and/or fall apart.

Rise of the Far-Right

In September 2004 elections were held in the states of Saarland, Brandenburg and Saxony. In the Saar region the governing CDU could remain in power and gain one additional seat in the parliament. The SPD has lost seven seats, while the Liberals and Greens could re-enter the parliament. Remarkably and most surprising the Far-Right National Democratic Party, that had never gotten more than 1 or 2 percent in recent decades, received about 4% of the votes (but did not receive a seat in the parliament, because they were not elected by at least 5% of the voters).

Two weeks later, elections in the eastern states Brandenburg and Saxony were held: the ruling parties overall lost votes, but they remained in power. However, the ruling CDU in Saxony was forced (due to their losses at the ballots) to form a coalition with the 9,8% party SPD as a junior partner. In Brandenburg the CDU remained junior partner of the SPD. The fact that in Brandenburg the right party DVU re-entered and in Saxony the far-right party NPD entered the state parliaments caused worries in the traditional political parties.

German federal election 2005

On May 22nd as predicted the SPD took a devastating defeat in its former heartland, North Rhine-Westphalia. Half an hour after the election results, the SPD chairman [[Franz M�ntefering]] announced that the chancellor would clear the way for premature federal elections, which took the republic by surprise, especially because the SPD was seen in polls below 25% at that time. On the following Monday the CDU announced Angela Merkel as conservative candidate for chancellorship, aspiring to be the first female chancellor in Germany ever.

Whereas in May and June 2005 victory of the conservatives seemed highly likely, with some polls giving them an absolute majority, this picture changed shortly before the election at September 18, 2005, especially after the conservatives introduced Paul Kirchhof as potential minister of the treasury, and after a TV duel between Merkel and Schr�der where many considered Schr�der to have performed better.

New for the 2005 election was the alliance between the newly formed Labour and Social Justice Party (WASG) and the PDS, planning to fuse into a common party (see Left Party.PDS). With the former SPD chairman Oskar Lafontaine for the WASG and Gregor Gysi for the PDS as prominent figures, this alliance soon found interest in the media and in the population. Polls in July saw them as high as 12 %.

After success in the state election for Saxonia, the alliance between the far right parties National Democratic Party and Deutsche Volksunion (DVU), which planed to leapfrog the "five-percent hurdle" on a common party ticket was another media issue.

The election results of September 18 2005 were surprising insofar as they differed widely from the polls of the previous weeks. The conservatives lost votes compared to 2002, reaching only 35%, and failed to get a majority for a "black-yellow" government of CDU/CSU and liberal FDP. The FDP polled a stunning 10 % of the votes, one of their best results ever. But the red-green coalition also failed to get a majority, with the SPD losing votes, but polling almost 35 % and the greens staying at 8 %. The left party alliance reached 8.7 % and entered the German Parliament, whereas the NPD only got 1.6 %.

The most likely outcome of coalition talks will be a so-called "grand coalition" between the conservatives (CDU/CSU) and the social democrats (SPD), with the three smaller parties (liberals, greens and the left) in the opposition. Other possible coalitions include a "traffic light coalition" between SPD, FDP and Greens and a "Jamaica coalition" between CDU/CSU, FDP and Greens. Coalitions involving the Left Party have been ruled out by all parties (including the Left Party itself), although the combination of one of the major parties and any two small parties would mathematically have a majority. Of these combinations, only a red-red-green coalition is politically even imaginable. Both Gerhard Schr�der and Angela Merkel announced that they have won the election and should become next chancellor.

See also

External links


References

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