On 28 September 2009, at 3.35 a.m., the Federal Returning Officer announced the provisional official result of the 17th German Bundestag elections on 27 September 2009.

With a voter turnout of 70.8 percent (2005: 77.7 percent), the parties obtained the following shares of the total number of valid second votes cast:

Party	2009	2005
SPD	23.0	34.2
CDU	27.3	27.8
FDP	14.6	9.8
The Left Party	11.9	8.7
Alliance 90/The Greens	10.7	8.1
CSU	6.5	7.4
Others	6.0	3.9

In the 2009 Bundestag elections, 1.5 percent of the second votes were invalid (2005: 1.6 percent).

1.7 percent of the first votes cast in the 2009 Bundestag election were invalid (2005: 1.8 percent).

In accordance with Section 1 (1) of the Federal Elections Act, the newly elected Bundestag will consist of the 598 Members of the Bundestag required by law plus 24 Members elected as ‘overhang mandates’ (additional seats as a result of parties winning more constituency seats than their share of the second vote would entitle them to). The total number of Members of the Bundestag will therefore be 622 (2005: 614 Members).

According to the provisional official result, the following parties will be represented with the following number of seats (including overhang mandates) in the 17th German Bundestag:

SPD	146 seats	2005: 222	including 64 constituency seats	2005:145
CDU	194 seats	2005:180	including 173 constituency seats	2005: 106
FDP	93 seats	2005:61	including 0 constituency seats	2005: 0
The Left Party	76 seats	2005:54	including 16 constituency seats	2005: 3
Alliance 90/The Greens	68 seats	2005:51	including 1 constituency seats	2005: 1
CSU	45 seats	2005:46	including 45 constituency seats	2005: 44

The provisional distribution of seats in the Länder (federal states), including the number of Land list seats won by each party, is available in a table on the Federal Returning Officer’s website.

This website also offers comprehensive further information and tables concerning the 2009 Bundestag election.

According to the provisional official result, the overhang mandates are distributed among the following parties as follows:

CDU: 21 overhang mandates including:

• 1 in Schleswig-Holstein
• 2 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
• 4 in Saxony
• 1 in Thuringia
• 2 in Rhineland-Palatinate
• 10 in Baden-Württemberg
• 1 in Saarland

CSU: 3 overhang mandates in Bavaria

The other parties did not gain any overhang mandates.

The provisional results of the 2009 Bundestag election for the Federation, the Länder and the individual constituencies are available on the Federal Returning Officer’s website:

www.bundeswahlleiter.de

Issue no. 2 “Vorläufige Ergebnisse nach Wahlkreisen” (Provisional results by constituency), a publication from the Federal Returning Officer on the 2009 Bundestag election, also contains a record of the provisional results. It can be downloaded free of charge as a pdf file from the Federal Returning Officer’s website.

The printed edition may also be obtained from booksellers or ordered directly from the Federal Statistical Office’s Publication Service at a price of EUR 18.- per copy:

www.destatis.de/publikationen

The Federal Returning Officer expressed his sincere thanks to the more than 600,000 volunteers on the electoral boards. “Your commitment has made a vital contribution to the successful conduct of the 2009 Bundestag election and provides an important service to our democracy.” He also extended his sincere thanks to the thousands of people working at the electoral offices, authorities or the Deutsche Post postal services who ensured the election process ran smoothly.

The final official result of the 2009 Bundestag election will be determined and announced by the Federal Electoral Committee at a public meeting at the German Bundestag in Berlin, expected to be held on 14 October 2009.

For further information please contact:
Margitta von Schwartzenberg,
tel: (+49-611) 75-2754,
e-mail: bundeswahlleiter@destatis.de