There are two elections in Western democracies this week. The first is Canada, which is holding a snap election today (September 20th). The second is Germany, which is holding a regularly scheduled election on Sunday September 26th.1 The German election is the first one in 16 years without current Chancellor Angela Merkel on the ballot (she is retiring).
Canada has a parliamentary system, which means it has a cabinet government (executive) composed of the leader of the largest party that can form a majority coalition in the lower legislative house (House of Commons). However, unlike most parliamentary systems, but similar to the British and American systems, it uses a first-past-the-post electoral system.2 Canada is formally a constitutional monarchy, recognizing the sovereign of Great Britain as its head of state. The Prime Minister is the head of the government.
Germany may have the best democratic system in place anywhere in the world right now. It has a parliamentary system that incorporates both district seats and party proportional seats. This allows it to have geographically-based representatives as well as ensuring that the composition of the Bundestag reflects the ideological diversity of the German people. Germany is a republic, with a president appointed by the Bundestag as its head of state. The Chancellor is the head of the government.
In both nations, a center/left coalition is expected to win and form the next government. In Canada, the existing government is headed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He was elected to head up a minority government (i.e., a coalition in which the major partner does not have an outright majority) in 2019 and called this snap election a month ago in hopes of gaining a Liberal majority in Parliament. That is not likely to happen and polling suggests that Trudeau will remain PM in a minority government with perhaps a strong partner in either the New Democratic Party or Bloc Quebecois. It is possible that the Conservatives will be the largest party in Parliament after today’s election, but when combined with their only likely coalition partner – the right-wing People’s Party – they will still probably fall short of 40%. The Liberals and just one of their two potential coalition partners should easily have over 50%.
Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
LIB = Liberal Party (center/left, current governing party)
CON = Progressive Conservative Party (center/right)
NDP = New Democratic Party (left)
BQ = Bloc Quebecois (left)
GRN = Green Party (left)
PPC = People’s Party (right)
The CBC projections have the Liberals winning 155 seats. A party needs 170 seats for a majority in Parliament. The Conservatives are projected to win 119 seats. The NDP is projected to win 32 seats, the BQ 31 seats, and the Greens just one seat. No other parties are projected to win seats. This may seem odd since the People’s Party is polling seven percent nationally while the Greens are polling three percent. This is a function of a system using geographic districts with a first-past-the-post electoral system.
It’s important to remember that vote share does not neatly translate into member share in the legislature. The Greens can get five percent of the national vote (polling has them closer to three percent) and end up with zero members of Parliament. While vote share is interesting for a number of reasons, the number to keep an eye on is the number of constituencies (or ridings, as they are called in Canada) won by each party.
In Germany, there is an additional wrinkle to understanding the ultimate outcome because of the dual proportional representation process. In order to win seats in the Bundestag through proportional representation a party must win at least five percent of the national list vote. The “list” is how voters choose representatives in a proportional representative election. Each party puts up a list of representatives that will be elected based on the share of national vote. The names of candidates are put in order of electoral priority. For instance, if a party only gets three representatives based on the proportional vote then the first three candidates on its list are elected. For this reason, it is common for the district-based candidate from the party to be placed number one on the list to better ensure that person is elected. To be clear, voters cast two votes. The first for the district-based candidate and the second for a party list. On the second question voters must choose an entire party list, they cannot pick and choose among parties. The point of the second question is to ensure an ideological balance in the Bundestag that the district-based voting can obscure.
Source: The Economist
SPD = Social Democratic Party (center/left)
CDU/CSU = Christian Democratic Party (center/right, incumbent governing party)
The Greens = Green Party (left)
FDP = Free Democratic Party (center)
AfD = Alternative for Germany (right)
The Left = Coalition of former Communists (left)
There is no fixed number of seats in the Bundestag because the list vote sometimes requires that seats be added to equalize the results.3 As a consequence, The Economist projects share of seats rather than actual numbers of seats. The ruling CDU/CSU is projected (this is an average of a range) to win 24 percent while the SPD is expected to win 27 percent. There are two potential coalition partners for CDU/CSU: the FDP (projection: 12.5%) and the AfD (projection: 12.5%). Assuming CDU/CSU can get the FDP to agree to a coalition, these projections only get them to 49%. That means the SPD could form a government without the FDP. It’s unlikely that the FDP would join with the conservatives rather than the social democrats if the SPD can form a government without them. The FDP is very interested in the Finance Minister portfolio and will likely make a hard press for coalition with whatever party seems to have the best route to forming a government.
On the left, the Greens are projected to win 16.5% of the seats in the Bundestag. For a short time around the beginning of May, the Greens were polling as the leading party. There was talk at that time that the Greens might actually be the governing party, but since then their support has dropped in the polling back to third place. But it is a strong third place and it is likely that the SPD and Greens will be involved in a governing coalition after this election. At the moment, The Economist projects those two parties to win 43.5% of the vote. This means that either The Left (projection: 7.5%) or the FDP will have to be included in an SPD coalition. The party members of the SPD are further to the left than its leadership and if SPD Chancellor-candidate Olaf Scholz needs a third coalition partner it will be tricky politics for him. He will likely want to work with the FDP while many rank-and-filers in the party will want to bring in The Left. At the moment, a “traffic light” coalition of SPD-Greens-FDP seems most likely.
We will know soon, but both countries should see a center/left governing coalition after these elections. This is a change in government in Germany, but a continuation of Liberal government in Canada. However, in both countries the governing center/left party will likely be in partnership with a strong left-wing third party in the NDP (Canada) and The Greens (Germany). While this is acceptable for the SPD, it is not what Trudeau was hoping for in calling Canada’s snap election. He will have to accept another minority government – which is an oddity in the type of electoral system Canada uses. It’s normal in the kind of electoral system Germany uses.
The Bundestag is elected every four years.
This means that the (1) the legislative power of the winning candidate is 100% (no role for losing candidates/parties even if it is 50.1 to 49.9) and (2) the candidate with the most votes wins even if that candidate does not have a majority.
German law sets the minimum membership in the Bundestag at 598 seats. The current Bundestag is 709 seats.