The thousands of people frolicking at the Oktoberfest probably made a detour on the way to their local 'Wahllokal' to cast their vote in the general elections today, the Bundestagswahl.Angela Merkel, who became the first female chancellor of Germany in 2005 and has been in power ever since, is hoping to win the most votes with her conservative party, the CDU, and remain leader of Germany for another four years.
Unlikely to achieve an absolute majority, she will probably have to form a coalition with the liberal FPD like in the last four years, or sharing power with the second strongest party the SPD in a 'grand coalition'. But who knows, maybe the SPD with their leader Peer Steinbrück can still be victorious.
Germany has an election system where each party gets the amounts of seats in the parliament according to the percentage of the votes they get (provided it's more than 5 percent to start with). Like this, there are lots of smaller partys, which by becoming part of a coalition could make it into government.
Apart from the FDP, there is the Green party (Bündnis 90/die Grünen) which started from protests for more environmental politics in the eighties and from grass roots movement against the East German socialist regime in the 90s. It has become an established party which has governed for years in coaliton with the SPD.
There is 'die Linke' a far left party with roots socialist regime, and the 'Piratenpartei' who are against regulations of the internet, as well as the Alternative für Deutschland, which would like Germany to leave the Euro and be less restricted by European regulations.
Who will win?
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