Federal State

Germany is a parliamentary democracy. Its constitutional bodies are 

1. Bundestag
2. Bundesrat
3. The Federal President
4. The Federal Government
5. The Federal Constitutional Court

German Political Parties

The Political parties in Germany are 

1. Christian Democratic Union (CDU) 
2. Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)
3. Free Democratic Part (FDP)
4. Green Party
5. Left Party
6. Christian Social Union (CSU)
7. The Pirate Party
8. The Alternative for Germany

The Christian Democratic Union was found after World War II, is Germany's main conservative party. Five of the eight chancellors who have led Germany have been CDU members. The Catholic political party founded in 1870 is its root.

The Social Democratic Party is rooted in the 19th century labor movement and is Germany's oldest political party, founded in 1875. It traditionally represents the interests of the working class. Much of its support comes from the large cities of traditionally protestant northern Germany and the former coal-mining and steel producing Ruhr region. 

The Free Democratic Party is a pro-business party that promotes the free market economy and individual liberty. Its critics call it the party of the privileged few, an image the party has been trying to change in the current election campaign under its leader Guido Westerwelle. Founded in 1948, it has been "kingmaker" to both the SPD and the CDU, serving as junior partner in coalitions with them

Germany's Green Party formed in the 1970s around a platform of pacifism and environmental activism.

The party is the result of a merger in 2007 of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) -- the successor to the communist party that ruled East Germany -- and WASG, a group of trade unionists and disgruntled former SPD members based in western Germany.

The Christian Social Union (CSU) is a bit of an anomaly in the German political system in that it is the only national political party that is actually a state party. Though the CSU, which is the sister party to Angela Merkel's CDU, shares power with the chancellor's party at the national level 

The German Pirates, inspired by the Swedish Pirate Party set up in 2006, stunned Germany -- and themselves -- when they entered their first state parliament in September 2011, by winning a whopping 8.9 percent of the vote in the Berlin city-state election. Representing the new generation of people who grew up with the Internet, the motley collection of Web-freedom campaigners looked set to shake up Germany's staid political scene and do for the Internet what the Greens had done for environmentalism back in the 1970s.

Alternative for Germany (in German: Alternative für Deutschland -- AfD) is the newest party in Germany's political landscape. Officially founded on April 14, 2013, it is thus far largely a single-issue party: It wants to do away with the euro, or at least get Germany to back out of the European common currency zone.

Elections

Elections are held every four years. Germany has a voting system called mixed-member proportional representation. In the federal elections voters have two votes, the first is for a candidate, and the second is for a party.

The system is set up to prevent one single party from having a majority in parliament. Coalitions are normally formed between the party with the largest share of the vote and a smaller one so that the two in combination have over half the seats in parliament. Once again, this happens at the national level and also at the state level.