The Free Democratic Party is a liberal political party in Germany.
Elections in Germany include elections to the Bundestag, the Landtags of the various states, and local elections.
The 2004 Brandenburg state election was held on 19 September 2004 to elect the members of the 4th Landtag of Brandenburg. The incumbent government of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by Minister-President Matthias Platzeck was returned with a significantly reduced majority. The Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) moved into second place, although polls prior to the election suggested it would become the largest party. The CDU fell to third place.
The Landtag of Saxony, also known in English as the Saxon State Parliament, is the legislature of the Free State of Saxony, one of Germany's sixteen states. It is responsible for legislation, control of the government, and electing some state officials. The Landtag has existed in various forms since 1831, but the current body was established during German reunification in 1990. The Landtag is directly elected and has a term of five years.
The Left, commonly referred to as the Left Party, is a democratic socialist political party in Germany. The party was founded in 2007 as the result of the merger of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative. Through the PDS, the party is the direct descendant of the Marxist–Leninist ruling party of former East Germany, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Since October 2024, The Left's co-chairpersons have been Ines Schwerdtner and Jan van Aken. The party holds 28 seats out of 736 in the Bundestag, the federal legislature of Germany, having won 4.9% of votes cast in the 2021 German federal election. Its parliamentary group is the second-smallest of seven in the Bundestag, and is headed by parliamentary co-leaders Heidi Reichinnek and Sören Pellmann.
The politics of Saarland takes place within a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the Federal Government of Germany exercises sovereign rights with certain powers reserved to the states of Germany including Saarland. The state has a multi-party system where the two main parties are the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) on the left and the Christian Democratic Union on the right.
The Landtag of Thuringia is the parliament of the German federal state of Thuringia. It convenes in Erfurt and currently consists of 88 members from four parties. According to the free state's constitution, the primary functions of the Landtag are to pass laws, elect the Minister-President and control the government of Thuringia.
The Landtag of Brandenburg is the unicameral legislature of the state of Brandenburg in Germany. Its 88 members of parliament are usually elected every 5 years.
The 2009 Brandenburg state election was held on 27 September 2009 to elect the members of the 5th Landtag of Brandenburg. It took place on the same day as the 2009 federal election and 2009 Schleswig-Holstein state election. The incumbent government of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by Minister-President Matthias Platzeck took small losses, but retained a majority. However, the SPD chose to form a government with The Left rather than continue the SPD–CDU coalition.
Hubert Dietmar Woidke is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Since August 2013, Woidke has served as Minister President of Brandenburg.
Christoph Matschie is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as Deputy Minister-President of Thuringia between 2009 and 2014. He was also a member of the Bundestag from 1999 to 2004 and from 2017 to 2021.
Irene Ellenberger is a German architect who grew up in East Germany and who in 1990 became a politician (SDP/SPD).
Frieder Lippmann was a German politician (SPD). He was a member of the East German national parliament (Volkstag) and of the regional parliament (Landtag) of Thuringia.
Linda Teuteberg is a German lawyer and politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Serving as a member of the Bundestag since 2017, she was elected as General Secretary of the FDP on 26 April 2019 and thereby became part of the party's leadership around chairman Christian Lindner. Lindner asked for and received her resignation effective 19 September 2020.
Klara Geywitz is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) serving as Federal Minister for Housing, Urban Development and Building in the Scholz cabinet since 2021. She served as member of the Landtag of Brandenburg from 2004 until 2019, and is a Deputy Leader of the SPD since 2019.
Gerd Schuchardt is an electrical engineer who built his career and reputation in East Germany before 1990 in microprocessor technology and related forward-looking branches of science. He was interested in politics, but had avoided involvement in the country's ruling SED (party) or any of the various so-called "bloc parties" which it controlled. In January 1990, with the winds of political change - somewhat implausibly, as many still thought at the time - blowing across from the Kremlin in Moscow, the party leaders in East Berlin no longer felt able to stand against domestic pressures for a return to democratic politics after more than half a century of one-party dictatorship. Gerd Schuchardt became an activist member of the re-awakening Social Democratic Party. After reunification in October 1990 state-level democratic politics returned to Thuringia: Schuchardt became a leading figure in Thuringian state politics, selected by party members as the Social Democratic Party's lead candidate in the 1994 Thuringian state election. He led his party to what turned out to be its best electoral result in Thuringia to date. In the resulting "Grand coalition" government that ensued he served as vice-minister-president until 1999 under the leadership of Bernhard Vogel (CDU) and as Minister for the Sciences, Research and the Arts.
Heinz Vietze is a former German politician and party functionary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and its successors, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and The Left.
The Politics of Thuringia takes place within a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the Federal Government of Germany exercises sovereign rights with certain powers reserved to the states of Germany including Thuringia. The four main parties, following the 2024 elections, are the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), the centre-right Christian Democratic Union, the populist left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), and the left-wing Left Party.
The politics of the German state of Saxony take place within a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the Federal Government of Germany exercises sovereign rights with certain powers reserved to the states of Germany including Saxony-Anhalt. The three main parties are the centre-right Christian Democratic Union, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), and the populist left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).
