After the recount in Berlin-Spandau, the CDU, SPD, Greens and Left lose a total of five seats in the House of Representatives

After the recount of an election result in Berlin-Spandau, there are expected to be five fewer representatives in the Berlin state parliament than previously expected. State returning officer Stephan Bröchler announced this in response to a dpa request. “As things stand, Parliament will have 153 seats. On election night we assumed 158,” he said. There is one less seat each for the CDU, SPD and Greens. On the left there are two seats. Several Berlin media had previously reported on the topic.

The decisive factor was the recount of the results in the Spandau 1 constituency. There it turned out that the AfD candidate Tommy Tabor received the most votes and thus the direct mandate, not the CDU candidate Bettina Meißner, as Bröchler explained.

According to him, the reason for the recount was that the quick report of the result sent by telephone did not match the one in the electoral board's minutes. The correct number was recorded there, according to which Tabor is ahead and not Meißner. He could not say anything about the reasons for the incorrect telephone transmission.

CDU candidate does not get into state parliament

Meißner is also not entering the House of Representatives via the district list and is therefore not represented in the new parliament, as a spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group said when asked.

According to the state returning officer, the four other seats that will also be lost due to the loss of compensatory mandates are those of Martin Matz (SPD), Oda Hassepaß (Greens), Coco Aglibut and Bettina Günter (both Left). The final determination is the responsibility of the responsible electoral bodies, most recently the state election committee in its meeting planned for October 12th, it said.

The changed number of seats has basically no effect on the previously mathematically conceivable coalition options: According to the new calculation, the Left would have 45, the CDU would have 33, the Greens would have 25 and the SPD would have 21 seats. The majority in the state parliament has been reached at 77 out of a total of 153 seats. The number of AfD MPs remains unchanged at 29. A three-party coalition of CDU, Greens and SPD would currently have a narrow majority of two votes, red-green-red one of 14 votes.

Why five MPs suddenly lose their seats

How does this all relate to the recount in Spandau? Because the CDU candidate in question did not receive a direct mandate there, an overhang mandate will no longer apply, said Bröchler. This means that the number of compensation mandates must also be recalculated.

Before the recount, the CDU had 34 seats in the House of Representatives, including 6 overhang seats. Overhang mandates arise when a party wins more direct mandates via the first vote than it is actually entitled to based on the share of the second votes.

In order to maintain the balance of power in parliament determined by the second votes, these overhang mandates were offset by compensatory mandates for the other parties. The 21 compensatory mandates for all of Berlin calculated after the election were distributed between the SPD (4), the Greens (4), the Left (8) and the AfD (5).

Since after the recount in Spandau there is no CDU direct mandate and the party loses one of the overhang mandates, the CDU is only entitled to 33 seats instead of 34. On this basis it is calculated: In total there will only be 153 seats in the House of Representatives instead of 158. This means: four compensatory mandates for the other parties will also be eliminated.

Bröchler is fundamentally not critical of the result of the recount in the constituency in Spandau: “We don’t have election chaos in Berlin,” he emphasized. “An orderly control process is currently being carried out.” And that is exactly what came into play in Spandau.