Brantner cannot defend direct mandate in Heidelberg

Brantner cannot defend direct mandate in Heidelberg dpa • 5 hours • 1 minute reading time Green Party leader Franziska Brantner was unable to defend her direct mandate in Heidelberg against the CDU in the federal election. She received 27.74 percent, as the preliminary result for the constituency showed. However, Brantner is likely to be able to enter the Bundestag via the state list, where she is in first place. Brantner has been in the Bundestag since 2013 and is Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Protection. In 2021, the 45-year-old was directly elected. Alexander Föhr from the CDU received the most first votes in the Heidelberg constituency with 29.16 percent. However, whether Föhr actually enters parliament depends on his party's second votes after the new electoral law was applied for the first time and will therefore only be decided with the preliminary final result expected last night. Not all victorious constituency candidates will automatically be elected to the Bundestag: they will only receive a mandate if their party receives enough second votes, otherwise the victorious direct candidates will go away empty-handed. In return, the previously usual overhang and compensatory mandates will no longer apply. In future, the Bundestag will only have 630 members, instead of the current 733.