Immigrants in Germany

Electioneering in the Federal Republic: Courting the immigrant vote

When Cem Ozdemir became the first Turkish-German member of the German parliament, the Bundestag, in 1994, his office soon received many angry calls. "What's going on, what's the Turk doing up there?" an enraged voter complained about the fact that Ozdemir – then parliamentary secretary – was sitting on the podium in the centre of the Bundestag. "Since when is a Turk allowed to sit up there?"

Today, Ozdemir is a fixture in German politics as the leader of the Green party and a main face of their election campaign. He is also one of eleven Germans with Turkish roots in the national parliament.

The fact that Germany is an increasingly diverse country is starting to show in its electorate and political personnel. One in ten eligible voters has a migrant background, meaning that they or their parents were not born as German citizens. A total of 37 out of 631 Bundestag representatives migrated to Germany or are the children of migrants.

Which of the political parties can claim to represent the German-Turkish minority? Eleven MPs of Turkish extraction currently sit in the Bundestag. Five of them belong to the centre-left SPD, among them the party′s deputy chair Aydan Ozoguz. The Greens field three MPs with Turkish antecedents, including party leader Cem Ozdemir. The Linke (left-wing party) have two MPs with Turkish roots. In the CDU/CSU, the largest party to be represented in the Bundestag by a considerable margin, Cemile Giousouf is the first and only member of parliament with a Turkish background

German parties and media are starting to devote more attention to the voting behaviour of Germans whose parents or great-great-grandparents weren't born in Germany, in particular the two largest migrant groups: so called late repatriates ("Spataussiedler") – ethnic Germans from largely former Soviet countries – and Turkish-Germans.

There are 3.1 million repatriates living in Germany, according to the 2016 micro-census. The Federal Statistics Office (Destatis) estimates there are 730,000 Germans with Turkish roots eligible to vote in the federal election on 24 September.

Preference for the political left

According to political scientist Andreas Wust, voters with a migrant background tend to prefer parties from the political left. Such parties tend to be more open towards people with a migrant background and their concerns. While this also applies to Germany, a closer look at different migrant groups reveals that this tendency is certainly not true for all Germans with a migrant background.

According to Dennis Spies, a researcher on voter behaviour of Germans with foreign roots, migrant voters are not a monolith political force. "The group [of Germans with a migrant background] is growing, but heavily split politically," says Spies.

Are German-Turks drawn to a particular political party? "Turkish-German voters still demonstrate a pronounced tendency to vote left of centre" revealed a study by the Expert council on Integration and Migration (SVR) published in November 2016. Although the political orientation of voters with Turkish roots towards social democracy remains stable, it is showing signs of generational decline

"There is no one single type of migrant voter. Why should somebody who came to Germany from Ukraine 20 years ago have the same political preferences as somebody who moved here from southern Turkey? Or somebody who came here from Italy in the 1950s?″

Yet certain trends are visible among certain groups. Late repatriates tend to vote right-wing, Turkish-Germans predominantly cast their ballots for the centre-left.