The Germans refer to a Traffic Light Coalition as Ampelkoalition. This term is used to describe a coalition government formed by the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP), and the Green Party. The name is derived from the colors associated with each party: red for SPD, yellow for FDP, and green for the Green Party.

The two most importan parties are the conservative CDU (Christlich-Demokratische Union = Christian Democratic Union) and the socialistic SPD (sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands = Social Democratic Party of Germany). Other parties are the FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei Deutschlands = Free Democratic Party of Germany), Buendnis 90/Die Gruenen (Green Party) and Die Linkspartei.

With MMP (where two votes are done on one ballot, one vote is for a political party list and the other is for the constituency candidate elected by First Past the Post like in the UK), a split vote is where the voter votes for a constituency candidate from one party (CDU) and then uses their second vote to vote for a different party (FDP). Since they are natural coalition partners the Christian Democratic Union and the free market, pro-business Free Democratic Party unofficially promote the idea of splitting their vote (CDU for the 1st vote, FDP for the 2nd vote).

Angela Merkel leads the Christliche Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union), aka CDU. The CDU is currently in coalition with the Christlich-Soziale Union (Christian Social Union), aka CSU; and the Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party), aka FDP.

Free Democratic Party of Switzerland was created in 1894.