These were the main features of the new Weimar constitution of 1919. Germany continued to be governed in this way until 1933. The Weimar Constitution gave Germany its first experience of democratic government. The constitution stated that 'all power comes from the people'. This meant that all adult Germans were able to vote at regular intervals, both for their President (the head of state) and for their representatives in the parliament (known as the Reichstag). Women, for the first time in Germany, gained the right to vote. In an emergency the President was given the power to rule by decree, in other words without consulting the Reichstag. In normal circumstances, however, the actual head of the government would be the Chancellor (equivalent to a Prime Minister) rather than the President. Elections to the Reichstag were to be by a system of proportional representation. Under this system a party received the same percentage of seats in the Reichstag as it had received votes in the election. This was intended to be a more democratic system than the one used, for example, in British parliamentary elections. Its main disadvantage was that it encouraged the formation of a lot of small parties. No single party was therefore able to secure an overall majority in the Reichstag. As a result most governments consisted of coalitions, or alliances, of a number of parties. Such governments were sometimes weak and short-lived. The constitution guaranteed the rights of German people in a number of important respects: freedom of religious worship; freedom of the press; freedom to form trade unions; freedom from unlawful arrest. Many Germans were very pleased to be now living in a democratic state. Many others, however, disliked democracy and rejected the Weimar Republic from the very start.