German Elections: The Day After

BERLIN, GERMANY - SEPTEMBER 23: Philipp Roesler, Chairman of the German Free Democrats (FDP) political party, speaks to the media the day after the party, which until now was the junior partner in the German government coalition, suffered disastrous results in German federal elections on September 23, 2013 in Berlin, Germany. For the first time since the founding of the German federal republic the party has failed to reach the 5% necessary to retain seats in the Bundestag, meaning that it will no longer be represented in Germanys parliament. The German Christian Democrats (CDU) finished with approximately 42% of the vote, which puts the party just shy of a majority of seats in the Bundestag. The CDU will now face the task of finding a coalition partner, which is complicated by the FDP disaster. Many analysts favour a grand coalition between the CDU and the second-place German Social Democrats (SPD). (Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images)