German election explained: How does it work and who will be chancellor after Angela Merkel?

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A vote is taking place that will determine who succeeds German Chancellor Angela Merkel after her 16 years in power.

What's likely is that it won't be immediately clear who will be Ms Merkel's replacement when the exit poll comes in after voting finishes at 6pm local time.Every voter gets two votes: One for a directly elected MP, like the UK/Westminster system, and a second for a party of their choice.

The way the final number of seats for each party is worked out is by ignoring all the parties that scored less than 5% of the party share vote, then working out the actual share achieved by the remaining parties and then adjusting the total number of seats until it reflects this figure. This will only ever be adjusted up, not down, which is why the party share allocation usually rises above 299.

Consequently, they have to form a coalition. Usually, that process is led by the person the party has chosen to be the future potential chancellor.The German, or West German, government has been led by one of two parties since shortly after the end of the Second World War. They have previously been in a coalition government of Gerhard Schroder in the late 1990s/early noughties.The Free Democrats , despite being behind the Greens in the polls, have a long history of being in coalition with both the CDU and the SPD. They are a pro-business party, espousing economic liberalism and the promotion of free markets and privatisation.

The CDU has outlined this scenario in a bid to win over voters who may be worried about the prospect of what would the most left-wing, and potentially radical, government for years. Currently, the parties do not have enough support in the polls for this to happen.If the Greens do particularly well, the CDU poorly but the SPD is still the biggest party, Mr Scholz may be able to form a grouping without the need for The Left, which would result in a largely environmentally driven government.

 

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