2005 German federal election in the context of "There is no alternative"

The 2025 German federal election was held in Germany on 23 February 2025 to elect the 630 members of the 21st Bundestag, down from 736 in 2021 due to reforms in seat distribution. The 2025 election took place seven months ahead of schedule due to the 2024 collapse of the Scholz governing coalition. Following the loss of his majority, the chancellor called and intentionally lost a motion of confidence, which enabled the approval of a new election by the president. The 2025 election was the fourth snap election in post-war German history, and the first since 2005.

Three opposition parties increased their votes in the election, compared with the previous federal election in 2021. The conservative CDU/CSU alliance became the largest group in the Bundestag, with 28.5% of votes. Although this result was well below the 41.5% vote Angela Merkel had achieved in 2013 and its second to worst since 1949, it positioned them to lead the new government. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) with 20.8% doubled its share and achieved its best result in nation-wide German elections, moving into second place, without any other party willing to work with them. The socialist Left party, polling well under 5% until January 2025, massively improved within a few weeks to 9%. On the other hand, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a populist splinter from the Left, fell in the polls, and at 4.98% narrowly failed to enter the Bundestag.

The Party of Democratic Socialism (German: Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus, PDS) was a left-wing populist political party in Germany active between 1989 and 2007. It was the legal successor to the communist Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which ruled the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) as leading governing party of the National Front until 1989. From 1990 through to 2005, the PDS had been seen as the left-wing "party of the East". While it achieved minimal support in western Germany, it regularly won 15% to 25% of the vote in the eastern new states of Germany, entering coalition governments with the Social Democratic Party of Germany in the federal states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin.

In 2005, the PDS, renamed The Left Party.PDS (Die Linkspartei.PDS), entered an electoral alliance with the Western Germany-based Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG) and won 8.7% of the vote in Germany's September 2005 federal elections (more than double the 4% share achieved by the PDS alone in the 2002 federal election). On 16 June 2007, the two groupings merged to form a new party called Die Linke (The Left). The party had many socially progressive policies, including support for legalisation of same-sex marriage and greater social welfare for immigrants.

A federal election was held on 22 September to elect the members of the 18th Bundestag of Germany. At stake were all 598 seats to the Bundestag, plus 33 overhang seats determined thereafter. The Christian Democratic Union of Germany/Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CDU/CSU) of incumbent chancellor Angela Merkel won their best result since 1990 with nearly 42% of the vote and nearly 50% of the seats, just five short for an overall majority. The co-governing Free Democratic Party (FDP) failed to meet the 5% vote electoral threshold in what was their worst showing ever in a federal election at the time, the electoral wipeout denying them seats in the Bundestag for the first time in their history.

As the CDU/CSU's narrowly missed a majority, and the FDP failed to get any seats, any prospective government was required to be a new coalition. The only possible coalition government excluding the CDU/CSU would have been an all-left-wing red–red–green coalition, since a red–green alliance, similar to the German government between 1998 and 2005, would not have enough seats for a majority. Both the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and Alliance 90/The Greens ruled out governing with The Left that had ruled former East Germany. Ultimately, Merkel's party reached a coalition agreement with the then-main opposition party, the SPD, to form another grand coalition, the third in the country's history since World War II. The SPD leadership conducted a ratification vote by their broader membership before the agreement was made final. This grand coalition was renewed after the 2017 German federal election due to failure during the negotiations of a Jamaica coalition.

A federal election was held in Germany on 26 September 2021 to elect the members of the 20th Bundestag. State elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern were also held. Incumbent chancellor Angela Merkel, first elected in 2005, chose not to run again, marking the first time that an incumbent Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany did not seek re-election.

With 25.7% of total votes, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) recorded their best result since 2005, and emerged as the largest party for the first time since 2002. The ruling CDU/CSU, which had led a grand coalition with the SPD since 2013, recorded their worst ever result with 24.1%, a significant decline from 32.9% in 2017. Alliance 90/The Greens achieved their best result in history at 14.7%, while the Free Democratic Party (FDP) made small gains and finished on 11.4%. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) fell from third to fifth place with 10.4%, a decline of 2.3 percentage points. The Left suffered their worst showing since their official formation in 2007, failing to cross the 5% electoral threshold by just over one-tenth of a percentage point. The party was nonetheless entitled to full proportional representation, as it won three direct mandates. The South Schleswig Voters' Association (SSW) was exempt from the 5% threshold and won 1 seat, the first time it held national representation since 1949.