The SPS improved their position in Gruyères rising to first, from third in 2007 ( with 21. 4 %) The CVP moved from first in 2007 ( with 27. 9 %) to second in 2011, the SVP moved from second in 2007 ( with 25. 0 %) to third and the FDP retained about the same popularity ( 15. 9 % in 2007 ).

The SPS retained about the same popularity ( 19. 8 % in 2007 ), the FDP retained about the same popularity ( 13. 2 % in 2007 ) and the GLP retained about the same popularity ( 11. 5 % in 2007 ).

The Swiss People's Party gained five seats to the become the second largest party, while the FDP. The Liberals retained 10 seats but dropped to the third largest.

This was the situation in Germany in 2005 when Angela Merkel became Chancellor: in early elections, the CDU / CSU did not garner enough votes to form a majority coalition with the FDP ; similarly the SPD and Greens did not have enough votes to continue on with their formerly ruling coalition.

The FDP opposed the 1996 spelling reform ; as a result, their election manifestos are written in the previously conventional spelling.

' ( Strong applause from CDU / DA, DSU, FDP, partly SPD and the deputies standing up in their seats.

After failing to keep their majority in the general election 36 days after the wall went up, the CDU / CSU again needed to include the FDP in a coalition government.

Though Kohl's election was done according to the Basic Law, some voices criticized the move as the FDP had fought its 1980 campaign on the side of the SPD and even placed Chancellor Schmidt on some of their campaign posters.

The SPD quickly gained popularity and succeeded in forming a social-liberal coalition with the FDP following the 1969 federal election, forcing the CDU out of power for the first time in their history.

Although the CDU / CSU lost support in the 2009 federal elections, the FDP experienced the best election cycle in their history, thereby enabling a CDU / CSU-FDP coalition.

But, the CDU / CSU, the FDP and the SPD rejected Die Linke's request that Klarsfeld be allowed to meet with their factions.

Fears in the Italian electorate of a possible Communist takeover proved crucial for the electoral outcome on 18 April ; the Christian Democrats ( Democrazia Cristiana ), under the undisputed leadership of Alcide De Gasperi won a resounding victory with 48 percent of the vote ( their best result ever, and not repeated since ) while the FDP only received 31 percent of the votes.

While industrial leaders and both the conservative and economically liberal parliamentary parties such as the CDU, the CSU, and the FDP strongly supported Agenda 2010 as it implemented their long-time demands, there was a strong upheaval in Schröder's own social democratic party.

The delegates of the Christian Democratic Union ( CDU ) already formed a united faction with their Christian Social ( CSU ) colleagues from Bavaria, as did the liberal Free Democratic Party ( FDP ) together with the Hessian Liberal-Democratic Party and the Democratic People's Party ( DVP ) from Württemberg-Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern.

The Social-liberal coalition of SPD and FDP had lost its majority after several Bundestag MPs ( like former FDP ministers Erich Mende and Heinz Starke or SPD partisan Herbert Hupka ) had left their party and become members of the CDU / CSU opposition to protest against Chancellor Willy Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik, especially against the de facto recognition of the Oder-Neisse line by the 1970 Treaty of Warsaw.

On 30 May, when the law was voted on, the FDP was the only party to stand firm against their introduction.

It was a victory for the Christian Democratic Union, who received enough seats to form a coalition with their preferred partner, the FDP, and end the previous government formed by the Social Democratic Party and the Greens, who also ruled at the federal level.

The three smaller parties thus have more seats in the German Bundestag than ever before, with the liberal party FDP winning 14. 6 % of votes.

The CDU / CSU and FDP together hold 332 seats ( of 622 total seats ) and have been in coalition since 27 October 2009.

The Greens and the SPD came one seat short of a governing majority, but after multiple negotiations about coalitions of SPD and Greens with either the FDP or The Left, the SPD and Greens decided to form a minority government, which was possible because under the constitution of North Rhine-Westphalia a plurality of seats is sufficient to elect a minister-president.

* FDP: 4. 4 % (+ 0. 5 ), 2 seats (+ 1 )

This tactical voting also ensures that less votes are wasted, but at the cost of giving the FDP more seats than CDU voters would ideally have preferred.

The June 2004 municipal council elections led to the following distribution of seats: CDU ( 22 ), SPD ( 17 ), FWG ( 4 ), Grüne ( 3 ), FDP ( 2 ).

The Green Party loses four seats to go from 55 to 51 and goes into opposition with the FDP and the Left Party.

In 1959, the Free Democrats joined the other major parties in agreeing the ' magic formula ' to divide up the seats of the Federal Council, with the FDP permanently receiving two of the seven seats.

* FDP 2 seats ( 2004: 1 )

The other parties who got into the legislative were: SVP ( 11 seats ), FDP ( 9 ), CVP ( 6 ), Green Party ( 5 ), EVP ( 5 ), glp ( 2 ), EDU ( 1 ), AL ( 1 ), SD ( 1 ).

This party sits in the Bundestag between Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, while the FDP has its seats at the right of the Christian Democrats.

The opposition parties, the ( Christian Democratic Union / Christian Social Union ( CDU / CSU ) and Free Democratic Party ( FDP ), however, had a majority of 624 members because they commanded more seats in the federal states.

After the Thuringia elections of 2009, where the CDU went from having an absolute majority to not even having enough seats to form a majority coalition with the FDP, Althaus resigned as minister-president and as chairman of the CDU in Thuringia.

The FDP had won only 7 seats, though, which was just barely insufficient to form a CDU-FDP government.

* FDP 4 seats

Results of the 1999 ( inner ring ) and 2004 ( outer ring ) Landtag election in Saarland, in terms of parliament seats: SPD in red, CDU in black, Greens in green, FDP in yellow.

In the state of Bavaria, the CSU governs as the major party in a coalition government with the FDP.

The CSU has led the Bavarian state government since it came into existence in 1946, save from 1950 to 1953 when the Bavaria Party formed a state government in coalition with the German Branches of the SPD and FDP.

On 28 September 2008, the CSU failed to gain an absolute majority, attaining 43 %, of the vote in the Bavaria state election for the first time since 1966 on a percentage basis and was forced into a coalition with the FDP.

In the snap elections in North Rhine-Westphalia a week later, the FDP not only crossed the threshold, but also increased its share of the votes to 2 percentage points higher than the previous state election.

The FDP aims for the introduction of a citizen's dividend ( Bürgergeld ), which collects all the tax-financed social welfare and social security funds of the state.

Under the slogan " As much government as necessary, as little government as possible ," the FDP tries to limit the state involvement in the life of the individual as far as possible.

After being elected into the Federal Government, the FDP suffered from heavy losses in the following state elections.

After negotiations, the Saarland Greens rejected the option of a left-wing ' red-red-green ' coalition with the SPD and The Left ( Die Linke ) in order to form a centre-right state government with the CDU and Free Democratic Party ( FDP ), a historical first time that a Jamaica coalition has formed in German politics.

In June 2010, in the first state election following the victory of the CDU / CSU and FDP in the 2009 federal election, the " black-yellow " CDU-FDP coalition in North Rhine-Westphalia under Jürgen Rüttgers lost its majority.

When the votes were counted, the party doubled its federal vote from 1. 9 million ( PDS result in 2002 ) to more than 4 million — including an electoral breakthrough in industrial Saarland where, for the first time in a western state, it surpassed the Greens and FDP due, in large part to Lafontaine's popularity and Saarland roots.

Large sections of the SPD increasingly opposed his security policy while most of the FDP politicians strongly supported that policy ; while representatives of the left wing of the Social Democratic Party opposed reduction of the state expenditures, the FDP began proposing a monetarist economic policy.

In Switzerland, the democratic movement was ledand the new federal state decisively shapedby the Radicals ( presently the Free Democratic Party, FDP ).

Möllemann was President of the FDP in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia ( NRW ) from 1983 to 1994 and again from 1996 to 2002, and also was the chairman of the FDP fraction in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia from June 2000 to October 2002.

As a co-founder of the Democratic People's Party ( Demokratische Volkspartei, DVP ), the predecessor of the German Free Democratic Party ( Freie Demokratische Partei, FDP ) in the southwestern German states, he was a member of the Württemberg-Baden state parliament ( Landtag ) from 1946 to 1949.

From 1987 to 1991, he served on the board of the Hessian state FDP, and in 1997 Bubis led the FDP in a successful bid to gain representation in the Frankfurt city council.