Elections to the 18th German parliament (Bundestag) will be held on September 22.
The leading contenders for the election are incumbent Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany-Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CDU-CSU) coalition and Peer Steinbruck of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Under the German electoral system, each voter has two votes – one to elect a constituency candidate and the other to elect a party.
At present, the government is formed of the centre-right CDU-CSU in coalition with the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Opinion polls indicate that a clear win by either the CDU-CSU/FDP coalition or the SPD-Greens coalition is unlikely. Some of the proposed alternative coalitions are CDU-CSU and SPD grand coalition or the SPD-Greens and The Left (Die Linke) coalition.