03-14-2016, 01:57 PM
(03-14-2016, 01:05 PM)GMDino Wrote: That's what the story on NPR made it sound like over the weekend. That their seats came in various parts of the country (more eastern).
What this election did was increase their power in some of the state parliaments, and it gave them a seat at the table in the Bundestag. There are essentially two elections for the federal diet. Representatives are assigned based on local votes for their reps and then there are parties chosen for the other. It's about half and half like this, so half of the members of the Bundestag are assigned based upon their party as a whole receiving x% of the vote. The floor to be in is 5%, which AfD will now have. But, with 598 members of the Bundestag and the CDU/CSU alliance taking over 300 of those at the present, there isn't much ground gained here. Especially since the other parties already there, which are more liberal than AfD or the CDU/CSU group, are also gaining some ground.
