Angela Merkel Won Third Term in German Elections

Chancellor Angela Merkel won a third term by a landslide victory in German elections on 22 September 2013.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Union bloc - the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) won 41.5 percent of vote, but finished just short of an absolute majority.

The elections were held for the Bundstag, the German’s parliament. The Bundestag (Federal Diet) is a constitutional and legislative body in Germany. In practice, the country is governed by a bicameral legislature, but not a bicameral parliament.

The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) won 25.7 percent of votes and the ecologist Greens won 8.4 percent votes.

Final results gave the CDU/CSU 311 seats, the Social Democrats 192, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) 64 seats and the ecologist Greens 63 seats.

About Angela Merkel

Angela Dorothea Kasner, better known as Angela Merkel, was born in Hamburg, West Germany, on 17 July 1954. Trained as a physicist, Merkel entered politics after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.

Rising to the position of Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union party, Merkel became Germany’s first female chancellor, and one of the leading figures of the European Union, following the 2005 national elections.