Currently germany elects it's new parliament. That parliament afterwards elects a new government. We elect with a proportional representation-system, that is in the details kinda complicated. The system changed for this election somewhat, because the highest court ruled against the old system. Before it could have situation, that a vote for one party could actually lead to lesser seats in parliament for that party.

So, who cares and what do you think?

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Merkel=Bilderberger
Steinbrück=Bilderberger

no matter who wins,shit stays the same in a country that is still occupied by US/UK/French troops.

The FDP align most closely with my views, so the scenario I'm hoping for is a CDU/FDP coalition like we have now, and that's looking precarious with recent poll numbers (especially with the FDP so low). Merkel and the CDU will almost certainly stay in power in some form, possibly with a grand coalition with the SPD. The Pirate Party probably won't even win seats, but it would be interesting to see what they'd do with them if they did.

Of course, Merkel doesn't really stand for anything domestic any more, so I doubt we'd see much of a change in policy there whichever coalition she chooses.

Note that I have obtained pretty much all of my knowledge of German politics from The Economist, so that may well be somewhat biased. And all of this ends up being much like supporting a football team because German politics don't really have any impact on Britain.

Oh, we have a president. This guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Gauck

But the president has mostly representative functions in germany, the chancellor is the head of the government.

It is pretty unlikely that Merkel will lose. But we mostly have coalitions from different parties to form the government. It might be possible, that the current party (FDP) that is in coalition with her CDU might even miss to get into the parliament or together it will not be enough. The CDU will then make a coalition with someone else to make her chancellor.

You actually can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Democratic_Party_of_Germany

LOL, @ the football-team-comment, but that's mostly like it is for foreign countries.

FDP might be under 5%, that means they will get no seats. If they are above, they are considerably weaker than last time. Many people lost trust in them and mostly credit them all the bad stuff from the past 4 years. A grand coalition indeed is likely. Funny how in the advertisements SPD and CDU are fighting so much against each other and some days they may be in a coalition (again).

This seems relevant:

What is the bad stuff from the last four years? I only ever really hear good news coming out of Germany: low inflation, low unemployment, a more or less balanced budget. I figured that was why Merkel had surged so much.

Or: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Democratic_Union_(Germany)