BONN, Sept 28: Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats and their potential coalition partners, the Greens, swept to victory with a comfortable majority in Germany's general election, preliminary official results showed on Monday.Chancellor-elect Schroeder, 54, met informally with leaders of the ecologist Greens within hours of defeating Helmut Kohl to begin building Germany's first centre-left government in 16 years.The Social Democrats (SPD) won 40.9 per cent of the vote to take 298 seats in the new Bundestag lower house and the Greens secured 47 seats with their 6.7 per cent of the poll.
This would give a so-called "red-Green" alliance between them a majority of 21 over the rest of the house.
The SPD boosted their number of seats through 13 so-called "overhang" mandates which brought the total number of deputies in the new Bundestag to 669.These excess mandates arise when a party wins more seats under direct election from the "first vote" under the German electoral system than it would be entitled tofrom its share of "second votes".
The SPD say they need at least a 10-seat majority to guarantee a "stable coalition" that would not be held hostage by the Greens.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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