Why does a parliament shrink by more than 100 seats overnight? Because someone changed the arithmetic. On 23 February 2025, Germany voted for a Bundestag of 630 members, down from 736, and the reason sits in a technical rule most voters never think about.
How the old system grew
Each German voter has two votes. The first, the Erststimme, picks a local candidate in one of 299 constituencies. The second, the Zweitstimme, picks a party, and it is the second vote that sets each party’s share of the chamber. Under the old rules, a party that won more constituencies than its second-vote share entitled it to kept the extra seats, called overhang seats. Other parties then received balance seats so that the proportions still matched. Every overhang meant more balance seats, and the chamber swelled.
The reform scrapped both. Seats now track the second vote. IamExpat explained that to enter at all, a party needs more than 5 per cent of the vote or take at least three constituency seats outright.
Why the vote came early
Normally the election would have come in September. It came in February because the government broke. The three-party “traffic light” coalition collapsed in November 2024, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a confidence vote. In January he lost it, and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier confirmed the early date. It was the fourth snap election in the postwar history of the country.
The result
The conservative CDU/CSU, led by Friedrich Merz, took 28.5% of the vote and 208 seats. The right-wing AfD gained ground with 20.5% and 152 seats, making it the second-largest group. Scholz’s Social Democrats fell 9.3% from the last election to 16.4%, their worst showing in over a century according to law firm Freshfields, and hold 120 seats. The Greens won 11.6% and 85 seats. Die Linke, which had polled below the 5% line, came back with 8.7% and 64 seats. The liberal FDP and the new BSW both missed the threshold and are out.
The AfD will stay in opposition. Every other party has ruled out working with it. That leaves a grand coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD as the likeliest outcome, a pairing that ran the country at various points under Angela Merkel from 2005 to 2021. Its majority would be narrow, just 13 seats. The Greens, who would widen it, are not expected to be included.
The CDU/CSU fell short of 30%, which Freshfields said may let the Social Democrats bargain harder. Exploratory talks were starting, and the new parliament’s first session was set for 25 March.
Sources
- Shaping Germany's future: Key takeaways from the 2025 federal election (Freshfields)
- A complete guide to the German federal election 2025 (IamExpat)
