There is a huge debate going on about whether the next national parliamentary elections in Bangladesh will be held under the proportional representation system or the majority vote representation system. In this debate, the political parties demanding proportional representation have brought forward the proportional electoral system of the European country Germany as an example.

This has created interest in the German electoral system in the public mind.

In Germany, an influential country in Europe, there is a bicameral parliament with a federal structure and a mixed proportional representation system for ensuring transparency, democracy, and political balance in the parliamentary process. In the federal structure, the lower house of parliament is called the Bundestag, and the upper house is the Bundesrat. These two chambers together conduct the process of lawmaking and government formation in Germany. However, in this structure, if a party gets less than 5 percent of the total votes, they do not get any seats in parliament.

A review of the parliamentary system of Germany shows that the Bundestag is the lower house of parliament in the German federal system, which consists of representatives directly elected by the people. The Bundestag is very similar to the parliament of Bangladesh. The party members who receive the majority of votes in the Bundestag form the government. If no party individually gets enough seats, they form a coalition government. In the recent elections, the party that received the most seats in the Bundestag, the CDU/CSU, led by Friedrich Merz, is now the Chancellor (Prime Minister) of Germany by forming an alliance with the SPD, which received the second most seats.

Type of elections in Germany
Germany's electoral system is mixed. In the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag, 299 seats are filled through direct voting — much like the 300 parliamentary seats in Bangladesh. Here, voters cast two ballots. On the first ballot, voters in Germany, like in Bangladesh, vote for their preferred candidate, and whoever gets the most votes wins. The person who receives the most votes becomes an MP. On the second ballot, voters can vote directly for a party. In this system, someone can vote for a candidate from one party in their constituency but vote for a different party nationally. This second vote plays a key role in the distribution of seats by party in the proportional representation system in parliament.

Why this proportional representation system
This system was introduced in Germany mainly to establish a balanced democracy. Under this system, even if a party's candidates win the 299 directly elected seats, other parties that receive more than 5 percent of the total votes will also receive seats in parliament proportionally, to maintain parliamentary balance. For this reason, the total number of seats in the German parliament is currently 730. Of these, 299 are directly elected, while the rest are filled proportionally. The number of these seats increases or decreases based on the proportion of votes each party receives. Because if a party receives less than 5 percent of the vote, it does not get any seats.

Bundesrat: State-Coordinating Upper House
The Bundesrat is the upper house of the German parliament. There are 16 federal states in Germany. The governments of these 16 federal states send their own representatives to the Bundesrat. There are a total of 69 seats in the Bundesrat. Depending on the size and population of a state, it can send 3 to 6 representatives to the Bundesrat. The Bundesrat, or upper house, mainly influences the passage of laws, budgets, and federal policy through joint decisions.

How the Chancellor is elected
After the elections for the 299 directly elected seats, the remaining seats are distributed proportionally among the parties that received more than 5 percent of the vote. There are 730 MPs in the current Bundestag. Of these, 299 are directly elected. The rest are MPs elected based on proportionally allocated votes. Overall, the party or coalition with the most seats nominates the Chancellor candidate — much like in Bangladesh. The Chancellor is elected from the party or coalition with the most MPs.

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