Germany’s Political Coalitions

Two weekends ago, Germany went to the polls for their federal election in which they chose their representatives in the Bundestag, or legislature. Germany, however, is not a two-party system and no single party won a majority of seats. Consequently, the parties need to negotiate and form a coalition government. That could take a number of different forms given the number of different parties and their number of seats.

Thankfully the BBC produced a small graphic in an article that detailed how Angela Merkel’s political heir likely won’t take charge of the new government.

Here in the States we can only dream of coalition governments…

It’s a simple graphic, but given the terms Traffic Light coalition, Jamaica coalition, and Kenya coalition I think it’s a necessary graphic to help explain the makeup of these potential coalition arrangements. This falls into the category of small but exceptionally clear graphics. More proof that not all useful graphics need to be flashy.

Credit for the piece goes to the BBC graphics department.

Author: Brendan Barry

I am a graphic designer who focuses on information design. Most recently I worked for the Economic Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and prior to that I was Head of Design at Euromonitor International with my design team split between Chicago and London.

Leave a Reply