why German Parliament not popular
Answers
TODAY, October 24th, the newly elected members of the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, will take their seats in the plenary chamber for the first time after a federal election last month. Over the past few days, builders have been busy adding seats to accommodate them: with 709 members, 78 more than during the previous session, the parliament is now larger than at any time since the federal republic was founded in 1949. Why is the Bundestag expanding?
Slight fluctuations in the number of MPs are nothing new. In theory, Germany’s parliament has 598 seats: 299 MPs are elected directly; the other half enter via their party’s list. German voters cast two votes: one for a candidate in their constituency (where the first-past-the-post system applies) and one for a party list. The total number of seats a party occupies is calculated based on its share of the list vote. If a party is entitled to 20 seats but wins only 15 constituencies, the remaining five seats will be filled from its list, with no effect on the total number of seats in the chamber. But if a party wins more constituencies than it is entitled to based on its list vote share, these seats are not taken away. They are added to the plenary chamber, raising the number of MPs. Though the number of these so-called “overhang seats” has historically been low, they were found to be unconstitutional because they allow a party to occupy more seats than its vote share suggests it should, to the detriment of other parties.