Eleven Turkish-origin lawmakers gain seats in German Parliament

BERLIN - Anadolu Agency

A man drops his postal vote in a box installed for voters in the town hall of Berlin's northern district of Pankow September 20, 2013. AFP PHOTO / JOHN MACDOUGALL

Eleven lawmakers of Turkish origin have been elected to the German Bundestag, the country’s lower house of Parliament, following the nation’s general elections on Sept. 22.

Cemile Yusuf from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Aydan Özoğuz, Metin Hakverdi, Mahmut Özdemir, Gülistan Yüksel and Cansel Kızıltepe from challenger Peer Steinbrück’s Social Democrats (SPD), Cem Özdemir, Ekin Deligöz and Özcan Mutlu from the Green Party and Sevim Dağdelen and Azize Tank from the far-left Die Linke all won seats in the legislature.

Yusuf was the first Turkish and Muslim lawmaker to be elected on a CDU ticket.

Merkel’s conservative bloc stood at 41.5 percent, its strongest score since 1990 and just five seats short of the first absolute majority in the Bundestag in over half a century. The SPD, with whom Merkel ruled in a largely successful “grand coalition” in her first term from 2005 to 2009, finished second with 25.7 percent, little improved on their worst post-war result in 2009.