Second, it must not push Meretz below the minimum four-seat threshold.
His nine-seat haul there helped the Conservatives reach the 12-seat threshold nationally for official recognition as a parliamentary party.
Obama spent yesterday, buoyed by more stellar poll ratings, welcoming a defecting Republican senator to the Democrats' ranks, which should push his party to the all-important 60-seat threshold.
Many more takeaways could now be forced to install a toilet following a high court ruling that a 10-seat threshold set in regulatory guidance was not a correct interpretation of the law, and that local authorities had the power to require premises with fewer seats to install toilets.
Democrats reach that 51-seat threshold if independent former Gov. Angus King of Maine, who leads in recent polls, caucuses with them as expected -- even if Republicans win all six races currently rated as "tossups".
How fitting, then, that the most decisive moment in "Timbuktu" should also be the quietest: a white-robed imam, seated at the threshold of a mosque, looks at an Islamist who lounges there, with his rifle propped against the wall, and quizzes him about jihad.
To win a majority, Republicans need to pick up a net of 39 seats; to reach that threshold they will probably have to win at least 44 seats now held by Democrats to offset a handful of projected Democratic victories in Republican-held districts.
Mr. Draskovic's Serbian Renewal Party won only 3.3percentt of the vote, under the threshold for seats.
Some fear the insurgents may break through the 5% threshold for seats in the Bundestag.
Turnout rose and the far right fell short of the 5% threshold for seats in the legislature.
Previously the Kurds fielded independent candidates to get around the minimum 10% threshold for seats in the parliament.
