(The Ströbele factor; 03-02; p.3)

A second effect of these rules is that the Democratic Socialists (PDS) will have two MPs in the parliament. Since they are directly elected, it does not count that the party itself did not jump over the five-percent hurdle. Moreover, if the party had won a third direct mandate, the five-percent stipulation would not have had an effect: three direct mandates would have meant that the PDS would have sent MPs to the Bundestag according to their four percent share in the second votes.

The German election system thus may be characterised as a modified proportional system: the share of seats in the parliament generally shows the proportions of the parties' second votes but directly elected candidates modify these proportions.

 

The election and arithmetics

The extent to which such modifications may effect election can be illustrated by the already mentioned election district 84. If any, one has thought that the PDS might get a third direct mandate from this Berlin district. However, the successful candidate has been Hans-Christian Ströbele who has been elected with about one third of the first votes of the district. - This by the way was his only chance to become an MP: whereas his contestants had a place on their respective party lists which distribute mandates according to the second votes, he did not.

Based on the provisional final outcome (the official final outcome will be released on 9 Oct) and the calculation of seats according to the applied Hare-Niemeyer system one finds two different compositions of the next Bundestag:

• the real one with 598 seats and five more overhanging mandates

SPD 251 seats,	CDU 190 seats,
Greens 55 seats,	CSU 58 seats,
PDS 2 seats,	Liberals (FDP) 47 seats;

• the one based on - non existing - three direct mandates for the PDS and five overhanging mandates

SPD 242 seats,	CDU 183 seats,
Greens 53 seats,	CSU 55 seats,
PDS 25 seats,	FDP 45 seats.

Comparing the real to the calculated share of seats shows two effects: the direct mandate of the Greens did not enhance the influence of them on the SPD but it weakened the Social Democrats' position in the parliament. (read on here)