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Do you have any idea regarding the breakdown by party for women who were directly elected in a constituency as opposed to their placement on that party's list?

I guess it's safe to say that since almost all of the Linke, Greens and FDP members came from the lists, while virtually every CSU member was directly elected, that the answer for those parties is rather obvious, but what about the SPD and CDU, where the direct seats and party list seats were more evenly split?

by The Maven on Fri Oct 14th, 2005 at 12:59:12 PM EST
Uh... I promise I'll do that for the big parties, but that can only be on Monday! (I suspect tough no big difference.)

For the Grüne, the one direct mandate was a man, for the Linke, two of the three direct mandates was female.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Fri Oct 14th, 2005 at 05:35:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
As promised:

SPD: of 222 mandates, 145 were directly won. Of these, 46 were women: 31.7%. (List votes: 34/77 = 44.2%.)

CDU: of 180 mandates, 106 were won directly. Of these, jut 16 were women: 15.1%. (List votes: 21/74 = 28.4%.)

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Oct 17th, 2005 at 04:13:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Thanks for looking into this.

So it would seem as though these lower percentages may well represent a slightly more accurate picture regarding the willingness of German voters to actually vote for a female candidate for a specific seat.  Of course, what isn't clear is how many of the women who won direct election did so in districts where they ran against men, versus ones where they were running against another woman (as their principal opponent).  That would obviously require looking at each constituency and would be enormously time-consuming.

Still, it does somewhat surprise me that the CDU, conservative though it may be, had such a low percentage of women on its list.  I would have guessed that in this day and age, a figure closer to 40% would have been expected.

by The Maven on Tue Oct 18th, 2005 at 11:36:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]
My general (international) impression is that in parliamentary votes of proportional/mixed system democracies, party membership usually counts more than the person  - and thus the candidates' gender matters little for the voter even if s/he happens to be a sexist.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Wed Oct 19th, 2005 at 04:39:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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