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Look up Direktmandat in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
In Germany, a direktmandat (English: direct mandate) is a parliamentary seat that is won by the candidate who receives the most votes in a constituency in a legislative election. [1] In the mixed-member proportional representation system used in Germany, a political party receives mandates on the state list for the number of seats it wins in the constituencies, so that direct mandates generally have no influence on the number of seats the parties have in parliament. [2] In contrast, in a majority voting system such as in the United Kingdom or the United States, the number of seats the parties have depends exclusively on their success in the constituencies.
Under the federal election law, 299 members of the German Bundestag are elected directly in their Bundestag constituency. At least another 299 (299 plus any compensatory mandates for levelling purposes) are elected via their party's electoral list (list candidate ). The first vote and the second vote can be cast independently of each other. In the election to the German Bundestag, the direct mandates are awarded by the first votes in accordance with the Federal Election Law .
According to the Bundestag electoral system, candidates from political parties and possibly independent candidates as individuals, compete against each other in each constituency. The election is based on the relative majority voting system, i.e. the candidate with the most votes is elected as a constituency representative.
Until 2023, if a political party was able to win at least three direct mandates, it automatically received extra seats according to its share of second votes even if it had won less than five percent hurdle of the second votes (basic mandate clause ). This was last the case in 2021, when The Left Party was able to win three direct mandates but only 4.9% of the second votes. [3] In the 1953 West German federal election, one basic mandate was enough, which was the last time the German Centre Party was represented in the Bundestag. The total number of mandates a party receives is determined by its share of the second votes. The direct mandates are deducted from the mandates to which it is entitled based on this share, and the remainder are filled with candidates from the list.
If a party has more direct mandates than it is entitled to based on second votes, overhang mandates arise. Since compensatory mandates have been in place since 2013, overhangs do increase the size of the Bundestag for a party, but until 2020 they no longer brought it a systematic advantage through a higher share of mandates. Since 2020, up to three overhang mandates were not compensated. If a member of parliament who holds such an uncompensated overhang mandate leaves the Bundestag, unlike in other cases, no list candidate takes their place. This was the case when Stefan Müller and Andreas Scheuer (both CSU) resigned in 2024.
After changes adopted in 2023, overhang mandates will generally no longer arise, which is achieved by not awarding direct mandates if a party has received too few primary votes in a state. The awarding of direct mandates to the runner-up was rejected by the coalition parties as a "difficult to explain violation of an at least intuitively plausible concept of justice". [4] Such a regulation is provided for, for example, in the Bavarian state electoral system if a party receives less than 5% of the votes and therefore does not receive any mandates.
If an individual candidate wins the relative majority in a constituency, he or she will definitely receive the direct mandate (see currently Section 6 Paragraph 2 in conjunction with Section 20 Paragraph 3 of the Federal Election Act). This has not happened again since the first election in 1949. Before the election law amendment of 2023, this also applied to candidates of a party that had received neither more than 5% of the second votes nor the basic mandates, which meant that after the 2002 German federal election, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) was represented in the Bundestag with two MPs. [5]
| Year | CDU | CSU | SPD | FDP | BP | DP | Zentrum | PDS/ Die Linke | Bündnis 90/ Grüne | AfD | Unabhängige | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1949 | 91 | 24 | 96 | 12 | 11 | 5 | – | – | – | – | 3 | 242 |
| 1953 | 130 | 42 | 45 | 14 | – | 10 | 1 | – | – | – | – | 242 |
| 1957 | 147 | 47 | 46 | 1 | – | 6 | – | – | – | – | – | 247 |
| 1961 | 114 | 42 | 91 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 247 |
| 1965 | 118 | 36 | 94 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 248 |
| 1969 | 87 | 34 | 127 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 248 |
| 1972 | 65 | 31 | 152 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 248 |
| 1976 | 94 | 40 | 114 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 248 |
| 1980 | 81 | 40 | 127 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 248 |
| 1983 | 136 | 44 | 68 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 248 |
| 1987 | 124 | 45 | 79 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 248 |
| 1990 | 192 | 43 | 91 | 1 | – | – | – | 1 | – | – | – | 328 |
| 1994 | 177 | 44 | 103 | – | – | – | – | 4 | – | – | – | 328 |
| 1998 | 74 | 38 | 212 | – | – | – | – | 4 | – | – | – | 328 |
| 2002 | 82 | 43 | 171 | – | – | – | – | 2 | 1 | – | – | 299 |
| 2005 | 106 | 44 | 145 | – | – | – | – | 3 | 1 | – | – | 299 |
| 2009 | 173 | 45 | 64 | – | – | – | – | 16 | 1 | – | – | 299 |
| 2013 | 191 | 45 | 58 | – | – | – | – | 4 | 1 | – | – | 299 |
| 2017 | 185 | 46 | 59 | – | – | – | – | 5 | 1 | 3 | – | 299 |
| 2021 | 98 | 45 | 121 | – | – | – | – | 3 | 16 | 16 | – | 299 |
The members of most state parliaments are partly elected directly in their constituency and partly via their party's electoral list (a candidate may only stand in one constituency). Only in Hamburg, Bremen and Saarland are there no single-member constituencies. The proportion of direct mandates in the total number of seats varies between the different federal states. In principle, the procedure for allocating seats is similar. There are compensatory mandates everywhere for overhang mandates. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, the number of compensatory mandates is limited, so that unbalanced overhang mandates can arise.
There are no electoral lists in the election to the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg. Here, direct mandates, which are called first mandates in Baden-Württemberg, are awarded to the winners of the respective constituencies and second mandates to the defeated constituency candidates with the highest share of the vote. [6]
The Bundestag is the German federal parliament alongside the legally distinct body of the Bundesrat, which together function similar to a bicameral legislature while technically being two separate unicameral legislative entities. It is the only federal representative body directly elected by the German people. The Bundestag was established by Title III of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 as one of the legislative bodies of Germany. It is thus the historical successor to the earlier Reichstag.
Germany is a democratic and federal parliamentary republic, where federal legislative power is vested in the Bundestag and the Bundesrat.
The additional-member system (AMS) is a two-vote seat-linkage-based mixed electoral system used in the United Kingdom in which most representatives are elected in single-member districts (SMDs), and a fixed number of other "additional members" are elected from a closed list to make the seat distribution in the chamber more proportional to the votes cast for party lists. It is distinct from using parallel voting for the list seats in that the "additional member" seats are awarded to parties taking into account seats won in SMDs – these are ignored under parallel voting.
Mixed-member proportional representation is a type of representation provided by some mixed electoral systems which combine local winner-take-all elections with a compensatory tier with party lists, in a way that produces proportional representation overall. Like proportional representation, MMP is not a single system, but a principle and goal of several similar systems. Some systems designed to achieve proportionality are still called mixed-member proportional, even if they generally fall short of full proportionality. In this case, they provide semi-proportional representation.
Overhang seats are constituency seats won in an election under the traditional mixed-member proportional (MMP) system, when a party's share of the nationwide votes would entitle it to fewer seats than the number of individual constituencies won.
Elections in Germany include elections to the Bundestag, the Landtags of the various states, and local elections.
The Landtag of Baden-Württemberg is the diet of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It convenes in Stuttgart and currently consists of 154 members of five political parties. The majority before the 2021 election was a coalition of the Alliance 90/The Greens and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), supporting the cabinet of Green Minister-President Winfried Kretschmann.
Federal elections were held on 22 September to elect the members of the 18th Bundestag of Germany. At stake were all 598 seats to the Bundestag, plus 33 overhang seats determined thereafter. The Christian Democratic Union of Germany/Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CDU/CSU) of incumbent chancellor Angela Merkel won their best result since 1990 with nearly 42% of the vote and nearly 50% of the seats, just five short for an overall majority. The Free Democratic Party (FDP) failed to meet the 5% vote electoral threshold in what was their worst showing ever in a federal election, denying them seats in the Bundestag for the first time in their history.
The German federal election system regulates the election of the members of the national parliament, called the Bundestag. According to the principles governing the elections laws, set down in Art. 38 of the German Basic Law, elections are to be universal, direct, free, equal, and secret. Furthermore, the German Basic Law stipulates that Bundestag elections are to take place every four years and that one can vote, and be elected, upon reaching the age of 18. All other stipulations for the federal elections are regulated by the Federal Electoral Act. Elections always take place on a Sunday. Mail votes are possible upon application.
Martin Hess is a German politician for the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and since 2017 member of the Bundestag. He is the deputy domestic policy spokesperson for his parliamentary group.
Alexander Throm is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Baden-Württemberg, representing the Heilbronn electoral district, as a direct candidate since 2017. He was previously a member of the State Parliament of Baden-Württemberg from 2011 to 2016.
In the federal system of the Federal Republic of Germany, the state parliaments embody the legislative power in the sixteen states. In thirteen of the sixteen German states, the state parliament is known as the Landtag. In the states Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, the state parliament is called Bürgerschaft (Citizenry), in Berlin it is called Abgeordnetenhaus.
This is a breakdown of the results of the 2017 German federal election. The following tables display detailed results in each of the sixteen states and all 299 single-member constituencies.
This is a breakdown of the results of the 2013 German federal election. The following tables display detailed results in each of the sixteen states and all 299 single-member constituencies.
This is a breakdown of the results of the 2009 German federal election. The following tables display detailed results in each of the sixteen states and all 299 single-member constituencies.
The Zweitmandat was a feature in the variation of mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) used to elect the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg. Until 2022, Baden-Württemberg's system did not use party lists in contrast to most variations of MMP, such as the German federal electoral system. Instead, proportional seats were filled by losing candidates who won the highest proportion of votes.
This is a breakdown of the results of the 2021 German federal election. The following tables display detailed results in each of the sixteen states and all 299 single-member constituencies.
Lennard Oehl is a German economist and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and has been serving as a member of the Bundestag since 2021.
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In Germany, the first vote is used to elect a direct candidate in a constituency. In the federal states, the first vote is sometimes called the constituency vote or direct vote.