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Berlin Treptow – Köpenick is one of the 299 single member constituencies used for the German parliament, the Bundestag. Located in south-east Berlin the constituency was created for the 1994 election. After the 2005 election it was one of just three single member constituencies in Germany to be represented by The Left Party (DL). The current MP is Gregor Gysi who gained the seat at the 2005 election. Gysi is the former leader of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor party to the East German Communist party.
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History and boundaries
The constituency, numbered constituency 85 by the German electoral authorities, contains the whole of the Berlin borough of Treptow-Köpenick. This borough, a merger of two former boroughs, was created by the 2001 administrative reform. The Treptow and Köpenick areas were combined for the first time for the 1994 election, having previously been in the short lived constituencies of Berlin Friedrichshain – Treptow – Lichtenberg I and Berlin Köpenick – Lichtenberg II. Both predecessor constituencies were only used for the 1990 election and were won by the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
In both the 1994 and 1998 elections, the SPD winning margin was 2.8% over the PDS. At the 2002 election, the SPD increased their lead to 9.2%. Under Germany's electoral system, a party must win either 3 constituency seats or poll more than 5% of the vote across Germany as a whole in order to be awarded list seats. The failure of the PDS to win a third constituency here or in other potential seats such as Berlin Pankow or Berlin Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain - Prenzlauer Berg East in 2002 proved crucial to the overall result as it meant the party missed out on 15 list MPs. The 2005 election saw the situation reversed, with the PDS beating the SPD by 7.2%. In the 2009 election, Gregor Gysi, the candidate of The Left, the successors to the PDS, increased his majority to 23.9%. The CDU took second place with the SPD slipping to third place.
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The number of residents with German citizenship was 96.6%, a figure above the Berlin average of 86.6% and the highest figure for any Berlin constituency. 28.8% of residents had qualifications which met the requirements for University entry.
Electoral system
Bundestag elections take place using the Mixed Member Proportional system. Voters have two votes, one for a constituency MP and one for a regional list to elect representatives for the whole of Berlin city. Elections for the Treptow – Köpenick constituency take place using the First past the post system.
2009 election
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2005 election
Out of a total electorate of 193,339, the total number of votes cast was 152,302 (78.8%) of which 2,498 votes were invalid.
2002 election
Out of a total electorate of 189,307, the total number of votes cast was 147,762 (78.1%) of which 1,986 votes were invalid.