Kawasaki Takeshi

The purpose of this article is to analyze the German Federal election on September 27th 2009. Both Candidates for Chancellor, Merkel and Steinmeier, were belonging to the same government of the Grand Coalition, so that it was lacking in the controversial issues, and it came to the lightest turnout in the history of the Federal elections. The focal points of this article are about so-called "Uberhangsmandat", the additional seats, through which the minority could be reversed and get the majority, the relationship between turnout and percentage of votes of Social Democratic Party and causes of victory or defeat of each parties in this election especially regarding their coalition policy.

Two short-term factors-serious flooding in Germany, and resistance to US policy on Iraq by the Chancellor Schröder and his Social Democrats-were considered to be decisive for the reelection of the red-green coalition government in the general election in 2002. However, it is difficult to understand fully the election result without accounting for long-term changes in German social structure. The author analyzes long-term German voting behavior, in particular three important factors: the changing effects of gender on voting behavior, the transformation of collective church/union membership, and the influence of the East German electorate since reunification.