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German federal elections took place on 18 September 2005 to elect the members of the 16th German Bundestag, the federal parliament of Germany. They became necessary after a motion of confidence in Chancellor Gerhard Schröder failed on 1 July. Following the defeat of Schröder's Social Democratic Party (SPD) in a state election, Schröder asked his supporters to abstain in the Bundestag motion in order that it fail and thus trigger an early federal election. The opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union (CSU), started the federal election campaign with a 21% lead over the SPD in opinion polls. Many commentators expected the Christian Democrats to win a clear electoral victory and that CDU leader Angela Merkel would become Chancellor, forming a government with the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and displacing the governing SPD-Green coalition. However, the CDU/CSU significantly lost momentum during the campaign and ultimately won only 1% more votes and four more seats than the SPD. Exit polls showed clearly that neither coalition group had won a majority of seats in the Bundestag, leading to a hung parliament situation. Both parties lost seats compared to 2002, as did the Greens, while only the Left Party (a partial successor of the Party of Democratic Socialism led by Gregor Gysi and former SPD chairman Oskar Lafontaine) made significant gains. Both Schröder and Merkel claimed victory, but the formation of a new government required careful negotiations. On 10 October 2005, officials from the SPD and the CDU/CSU indicated that negotiations between the two had concluded successfully and that the participating parties would form a grand coalition with Angela Merkel as Chancellor. When the Bundestag met on 22 November, 397 CDU/CSU and SPD Bundestag members duly voted for Merkel. ==Background== Chancellor Schröder orchestrated the loss of the Bundestag motion of confidence with the aim of triggering an early federal election following the defeat of his SPD in Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia on 22 May 2005. The victory of the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia gave that party, together with the FDP, a working majority in the Bundesrat, the federal legislature's upper house. Early federal elections in Germany can only take place after the dissolution of the Bundestag by the President of Germany, since the constitution forbids the Bundestag to dissolve itself. The President can dissolve it only after the Chancellor loses a vote on a motion of confidence. The Federal Constitutional Court ruled in a similar situation in 1983 that Chancellors may not ask the President for the Bundestag's dissolution merely for the sake of their desire for an early election; they have to have a real problem getting a majority for his legislation. Many observers agree that Schröder met this requirement, since a number of left-wing SPD delegates had expressed great reservations about Chancellor Schröder's labour reform and welfare reform programme. However, only days before the vote, the coalition had passed a number of bills with no dissenters, indicating strong support for the Chancellor within the coalition. After urging members to abstain on the vote, Chancellor Schröder purposely lost a vote of confidence in the Bundestag on 1 July by 296 to 151. On 21 July President Horst Köhler dissolved the Bundestag and paved the way for the early election on 18 September. The Green member of parliament Werner Schulz – who, in a much-cited speech on the day of the motion of confidence, had criticised the deliberate loss of the motion as "farcical" and likened the Bundestag's obedience to Schröder to behaviour typical of the German Democratic Republic Volkskammer – and the SPD member of parliament Jelena Hoffmann jointly filed a constitutional complaint in the Federal Constitutional Court. The Court rejected the complaint on 25 August, ruling as valid the President's decision to dissolve the Bundestag, thereby giving the green light for the early elections on 18 September and ending speculation that Schröder would have to step down or lead a "lame duck" government. A small number of members of minor political parties filed similar complaints: the Court similarly rejected them during the week before the election. * These figures constitute the final results published by the ''Bundeswahlleiter'' (Federal election officer). * 77.7% of voters cast ballots, down 1.4% from 2002. This included a number of invalid votes as follows: 850,072 (1.8%) in the constituency section, 756,146 (1.6%) in the list section. * The CDU and the CSU sit together as one caucus in the Bundestag and do not compete against each other. The CSU runs only in the state of Bavaria while the CDU competes in all other states. * These results include nine "overhang mandates" for the SPD and seven for the CDU. * These results compare the results for the Left. party with those of the PDS in 2002. * These results include the delayed result from the Dresden-I seat (see below). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「German federal election, 2005」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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