The CDU has traditionally been the main center-right party across Germany, but it shifted toward the center under Chancellor Angela Merkel. The party remains more fiscally and socially conservative compared to parties on the left. It supports membership of the EU and NATO, budgetary discipline at home and abroad and generally likes the status quo. It is the largest party in the Bundestag.

The CSU is the sister party of the CDU in Bavaria and the two act symbiotically at the national level (CDU/CSU). Despite their similarities, the CSU is generally more conservative than the CDU on social issues. The CSU leader and premier of Bavaria, Markus Söder, ordered crosses in every state building in 2018.

The SPD is Germany's oldest political party and the main center-left rival of the CDU/CSU. It shares the CDU/CSU support for the EU and NATO, but it takes a more progressive stance on social issues and welfare policies. It is currently in a coalition government with the CDU/CSU and is trying to win back support under interim leaders Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, Manuela Schwesig and Malu Dreyer.

The new kid on the block is the largest opposition party in the Bundestag. The far-right party was founded in 2013 and entered the Bundestag for the first time in 2017 under the stewardship of Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland. It is largely united by opposition to Merkel's immigration policy, euroscepticism, and belief in the alleged dangers posed by Germany's Muslim population.

The FDP has traditionally been the kingmaker of German politics. Although it has never received more than 15 percent of the vote, it has formed multiple coalition governments with both the CDU/CSU and SPD. The FDP, today led by Christian Lindner, supports less government spending and lower taxes, but takes a progressive stance on social issues such as gay marriage or religion.

The Greens, led today by Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, emerged from the environmental movement in the 1980s. Unsuprisingly, it supports efforts to fight climate change and protect the environment. It is also progressive on social issues. But strong divisions have occasionally emerged on other topics. The party famously split in the late 1990s over whether to use military force in Kosovo.

The Left, led by Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger, is the most left-wing party in the Bundestag. It supports major redistribution of wealth at home and a pacifist stance abroad, including withdrawing Germany from NATO. It emerged from the successor party to the Socialist Unity Party (SED) that ruled communist East Germany until 1989. Today, it still enjoys most of its support in eastern Germany.

We start our list with the name that's most difficult for foreigners to pronounce. AKK, as Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is often known, has taken over from Angela Merkel as head of the Christian Democratic Union and must try to heal divisions between the party's conservative and centrist wings. It's a crucial task, one which may affect whether Merkel sees out the remainder of her term as chancellor.

The possible threat to Merkel is down to a new generation of pragmatic, stylish leaders embodied by no one better than Green party co-leader Robert Habeck. His influence has led many people in Germany to talk about conservative-Green coalitions as being the way of the future. Habeck will be instrumental in determining the course the environmentalists choose to take in 2019.

Of the four regional elections in 2019, the one in Saxony is arguably the most significant. Saxony has always been a conservative stronghold. The CDU has led every government there since German reunification in 1990. But incumbent State Premier Michael Kretschmer (above right) faces a tough re-election battle, with the CDU polling only around 30 percent. A loss here would have major repercussions.

Many Social Democrats are unhappy with the party's "GroKo" coalitions with Merkel's conservatives, seeing them as a betrayal of Social Democratic values and a reason for the SPD's precipitous plummet in the polls. The party is scheduled to re-evaluate its current partnership at the end of 2019, so expect to hear a lot from the leader of the No GroKo movement, youth chapter leader Kevin Kühnert.

Should the government fall apart, there will be immediate calls for a Jamaica coalition between the conservatives, Greens and the center-right Free Democrats. FDP leader Christian Lindner scuppered that idea in late 2017 after the last election, but has indicated he would be receptive to a tripartite political alliance if Merkel were no longer chancellor. He may play kingmaker in late 2019.

Another key regional election is in Thuringia, where incumbent Bodo Ramelow is the first and only state premier to come from the Left party, the successor to the socialist party in Communist East Germany. Whether he can fend off challenges from traditional conservatives and far-right populists will say a lot about the future of leftist parties in the economically lagging eastern part of Germany.

The German presidency is largely ceremonial, but when the parties are having trouble forming a government the president springs into action as a mediator. Frank-Walter Steinmeier did this after Merkel struggled to form a coalition following the 2017 election. Should the government break down in late 2019, the pragmatic SPD man and former German foreign minister would be called on again.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party heads into 2019 with some of the wind taken out of its sails after the anti-immigration populists were overtaken by the Greens in popularity. The Saxony regional election on September 1 represents the best chance for the AfD to regain lost momentum, and the party hopes regional chairman Jörg Urban can lead them to an outright victory.

Manfred Weber is not only leader of the conservative European People's Party (EPP) bloc in the European Parliament; he's also the EPP's candidate for the European Commission presidency in the European election in late May, making him the favorite to replace Jean-Claude Juncker. A smooth political operator, Weber would be the first German to hold Europe's highest political office since 1967.

He's 33, staunchly conservative, social-media savvy, Polish-born and the new operational head of Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union. His election as CDU general secretary reflects both the party's diversity and its desire to freshen up and have a counterweight to the centrists Merkel and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. But will he fall afoul of his two female bosses?