More than 59 million people are called to the polls on February 23 in Germany to decide the new composition of the Bundestag (Parliament) and, consequently, who will replace Olaf Scholz at the head of the government. In the general elections, all German citizens of at least 18 years can vote.
Germany uses a mixed complex proportional system. It becomes a mixture of uninominal electoral districts, in the style of countries such as the United Kingdom, and the characteristic proportionality of most countries in continental Europe.
Two votes
When they go to the polls, citizens have two votes on the ballot, and can divide it.
With the ‘first vote’, they choose the candidate of their constituency, their local representative. There are 299 districts. The most voted candidate wins in each of those districts and the rest leaves empty.
In the ‘second vote’, the system is different. A game is chosen. Citizens vote for a closed list of political formations in the 16 Länder (federated states) and the number of seats that correspond to each formation is proportional to the percentage of votes it has reaped. This is the most important vote, since it determines the relationship of forces of the parties in the camera.
To enter the Bundestag, the matches have to obtain at least 5% of the second vote or, at least, three seats from the 299 districts. This is a no less obstacle for smaller formations and adds high doses of unpredictability to the elections. An example: in the last federal elections of 2021, the Left Party Die Linke, took a batacazo and did not exceed the 5% barrier – stayed at 4.9% -. However, as he obtained at least three direct mandates, he benefited from this rule and was again represented in the Chamber as a parliamentary group with 39 deputies.
Changes to reduce Bundestag
In these elections, the system has changed. Before, the 299 deputies chosen by direct vote had automatically guaranteed their seat and, depending on this, the number of parliamentarians was adjusted. In general, it was necessary to increase the size of the Bundestag to ensure that each party received its minimum guaranteed seat number when they were distributed. In other words, if a party received more direct mandates than they would have corresponded to the results of the second vote, the rest of the matches were assigned additional seats so that they were not penalized.
In 2021, this led to a mastodontic Bundestag, of 733 seats currently, one of the largest parliaments in the world – among democratic countries. This has involved, on the one hand, greater costs. On the other, the deputies have indicated that such a high number of representatives decreases the effectiveness of legislative work, for example, in commissions. In previous legislatures, the Chamber was also significantly greater than the minimum legally required 598 members.
Now, a new law limits the number of seats to 630. It also prioritizes the proportionality over the individual seats of the direct vote.
With the new reform, if a party earns more electoral districts by that vote than the number of seats that correspond to it according to the second vote, the winners of the electoral districts with the worst results must go empty hands. These are those “with a lower percentage of votes throughout the country,” explained the political scientist and electoral law expert Frank Decker, to the public radio chain Deutschlandfunk. That is, the candidate who wins in a constituency will no longer be automatically member of the Bundestag, so that other parties will not have to be compensated (and thereby increase the size of the German Parliament).
In short, the new law has returned the second even more decisive vote. As some political scientists have advanced, the modification can translate into changes in electoral behavior, among them, that less voters divide their votes between different parties and more people support the same political formation with both votes to ensure that their preferred direct candidate enters the Bundestag.
The reform to reduce the size of the Bundestag was driven by the then ruler and now dismembered traffic light coalition (social democrats, green and liberals), and was approved in 2023, not exempt from controversy. The law was received with rejection by the conservatives of the CDU/CSU and the left, and there were parts of it that were not admitted by the Constitutional Court last July – in particular, the elimination of the clause that allows the most parties small entering the Parliament with candidates chosen directly despite not exceeding the threshold of 5%, which will be maintained, at least temporarily.
The seat calculation procedure is done by means of a method called Sainte-Laguë/Schepers, used since 1980.
The federal chancellor – this is, the president of the Executive – is not chosen directly in the elections, but through the deputies of the Bundestag. The German president proposes the candidate or the candidate, who as a rule is that of the party that the parliamentary majority holds.
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