Germany 2009 federal election

Final results from ParlGov, read 5 October 2026: CDU/CSU won 239 of 622 seats with 33.8% of the vote; 70.8% of registered voters cast a ballot, down 6.9 points on 2005.

Germany
Held Sunday 27 September 2009

Result

312 for a majority

Seats and votes by party

Party	Seats	± seats	%	± points	Votes
Christian Democratic Union of Germany	194	+14	27.3	−0.5	11,828,277
Social Democratic Party of Germany	146	−76	23.0	−11.2	9,990,488
Free Democratic Party	93	+32	14.6	+4.8	6,316,080
PDS / The Left	76	+22	11.9	+3.2	5,155,933
Alliance 90/The Greens	68	+17	10.7	+2.6	4,643,272
Christian Social Union in Bavaria	45	−1	6.5	−0.9	2,830,238
Pirate Party Germany	0		2.0		847,870
National Democratic Party	0	0	1.5	−0.1	635,525

± is the change against the Germany 2005 federal election, party by party.

Votes by party

Christian Democratic Union of Germany 11,828,277
Social Democratic Party of Germany 9,990,488
Free Democratic Party 6,316,080
PDS / The Left 5,155,933
Alliance 90/The Greens 4,643,272
Christian Social Union in Bavaria 2,830,238
Pirate Party Germany 847,870
National Democratic Party 635,525

ParlGov lists parties with at least 1 percent of the vote or 2 seats, so the rows do not add up to the valid votes. How we read it.

Share of the vote

Christian Democratic Union of Germany27.3%
Social Democratic Party of Germany23.0%
Free Democratic Party14.6%
PDS / The Left11.9%
Alliance 90/The Greens10.7%
Christian Social Union in Bavaria6.5%
Pirate Party Germany2.0%
National Democratic Party1.5%

Turnout

70.8% of the 62,168,489 registered voters cast a ballot (44,005,575 ballots), down 6.9 points on 2005. 43,371,190 of them were valid votes. The lowest turnout of this kind in our data, which begins in 1949. How turnout is counted.

Votes and seats

CDU/CSU33.8% of votes38.4% of seats
Social Democratic Party of Germany23.0% of votes23.5% of seats
Free Democratic Party14.6% of votes15.0% of seats
PDS / The Left11.9% of votes12.2% of seats
Alliance 90/The Greens10.7% of votes10.9% of seats
Pirate Party Germany2.0% of votes0.0% of seats

Each party's share of the vote (outlined) and of the seats (filled)

The Gallagher index of disproportionality is 3.8 (0 when seats follow votes exactly); the effective number of parties is 4.7 by votes and 4.0 by seats; CDU/CSU led Social Democratic Party of Germany by 10.8 points of the vote. How these are computed.

Sources and licence

ParlGov 2024 Release (Döring and Manow), Harvard Dataverse (source). Licence: CC0 1.0 Universal
Wikidata, party colours (P465) (source). Licence: CC0 1.0 Universal

Our text and compilation: CC BY 4.0. How to reuse and cite this page.