The election system in Germany

Now we are in Germany, a pretty big country. It's the country with the largest population in the whole of the EU. On some roads in Germany there are no speed limits, either. Yes, people can drive as fast as they want. Danni does not like this one bit.

She wants all roads to have speed limits. Well, Danni... that sounds like you... wanting to decide things. You'll first have to join a political party, Or you could start your own...

Then you have to convince people in your municipality to vote for you. You can either get voted in to become a member of the city council, Or run for mayor. But you may have to wait a while. Because, depending on where in Germany you live, local elections are held every four to six years. Oh, look: you won the election!

You managed to convince enough people to vote for you. So can you implement speed limits now? Well, that depends. The bundesland that you're in determines what each municipality is responsible for. But isn't this land 'Germany'?

Is there more than one land here? Well, each Bundesland is one of sixteen 'Bundesländer' - or states - that make up the country, Germany. If you want to decide things at that level? Then it's the Landtag that you'll want to get elected to. It's like a parliament...

but it only has authority over one individual Bundesland. But bear in mind that you now have to reach the whole Bundesland with your message. Congratulations, you got elected again! In the Landtag you're mainly in charge of: Culture, Education, The environment, And the police ... within your Bundesland.

You also get to decide what the individual municipalities take care of. You want to decide the speed limits over the entire country? Well, to do that, you'll have to get elected to the German parliament, which is called the Bundestag. The parliamentary elections are held roughly every four years. Oh!

This time you didn't get enough votes, unfortunately. The voters in your constituency elected someone else. But wait, you do actually have another chance to get into the Bundestag! Because in German parliamentary elections you actually vote twice: firstly for an individual, And secondly... for a party.

Half of the Bundestag is comprised of people who have been elected directly, and the other half is shared among the various parties - in proportion to how many votes each party received. So your party can give you one of the party seats. Good, eh? What do you get to decide in the Bundestag, then? Well, that's where you can write Germany's laws...

For example that there should be speed limits. But... you can't decide everything on your own: Germany has quite a few political parties, and it's pretty unusual for one party to get a majority of the votes. So instead, you join forces with other parties and build a coalition so that you can gain a majority together. But this also means that you have to cooperate with the other parties until you agree with each other, which requires compromise.

Also, all laws affecting the individual Bundesländer have to be approved by the other chamber of parliament: the Bundesrat. You get appointed to the Bundesrat by each Landtag. The person with the most power in the whole country? That's the Prime Minister. In Germany the title is: Chancellor.

The Chancellor is elected by the Bundestag. If you're elected to be Chancellor, you are responsible for policy in all of Germany. But the highest representative of Germany, the Head of State, isn't the Chancellor, but the President. The President doesn't have that much power, however, it's more of a symbolic, ceremonial, position... ... I guess that's not very interesting, then...