In Germany, a direktmandat (English: direct mandate) is a parliamentary seat that is won by the candidate who receives the most votes in a constituency in a legislative election.
[1] In the mixed-member proportional representation system used in Germany, a political party receives mandates on the state list for the number of seats it wins in the constituencies, so that direct mandates generally have no influence on the number of seats the parties have in parliament.
Until 2023, if a political party was able to win at least three direct mandates, it automatically received extra seats according to its share of second votes even if it had won less than five percent hurdle [de] of the second votes (basic mandate clause [de]).
If a member of parliament who holds such an uncompensated overhang mandate leaves the Bundestag, unlike in other cases, no list candidate takes their place.
The awarding of direct mandates to the runner-up was rejected by the coalition parties as a "difficult to explain violation of an at least intuitively plausible concept of justice".
The proportion of direct mandates in the total number of seats varies between the different federal states.