Germany’s constitutional court has partially annulled the electoral reform introduced by Olaf Scholz’s government last year with the intention of reducing the size of the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament. Parts of the new electoral law, which is due to come into force at the next federal election on 28 September next year, are unconstitutional, the Karlsruhe judges ruled on Tuesday in a ruling that is a setback for the coalition government made up of social democrats, greens and liberals. The decision does not invalidate the limit of the maximum number of seats in the chamber to 630, the main purpose of the law.
Scholz’s government had set out to put an end to the indefinite growth of the Bundestag, which until now had no fixed number of seats and was increasing with each new election to the point of reaching 736 seats after the 2021 elections. It had become the largest democratically elected parliament in the world and this had made its functioning extremely complicated, with committees with too many members and a lack of physical space to accommodate the deputies and their teams.
The electoral reform passed last year sets the number of seats at 630 and does away with the complicated system of voting with extra seats – the so-called additional and compensation seats – to ensure strict proportionality. It also requires obtaining a minimum of 5% of the vote to enter parliament, a requirement devised after World War II to avoid parliamentary fragmentation and prevent the proliferation of minority parties that contributed to the rise of the Nazis.
The previous system benefited small parties or those that only run in part of the country. After Scholz’s law was passed, they rushed to take it to the Constitutional Court to try to stop it, and they have succeeded, but only in part. The reform proposed eliminating the clause that allows smaller parties to enter the Bundestag despite not obtaining the necessary 5% of the votes at the national level. There was an exception, which consisted of obtaining three or more direct mandates, and which allowed Die Linke (The Left) to have a parliamentary group in 2021. It obtained 4.9% of the votes but three of its deputies were the most voted in their constituencies.
In the federal elections every German has two votes. With the first The candidate who receives the most votes in each of Germany’s 299 constituencies always has a seat by direct mandate. The other 299 (theoretical; the number has never been fixed) were chosen from closed lists presented in each constituency. land (Federated state).
If a party received more direct mandates than the number of seats it would receive based on the proportion of the second vote, the system allocated extra seats to it. Since the electoral law in force until now guaranteed strict proportionality, the other parties were allocated additional seats (called equalisation seats) to rebalance the forces. The Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which is only running in Bavaria, thus received more representation than it would theoretically receive based on the total number of votes.
Knowing what’s happening outside means understanding what’s going to happen inside, so don’t miss anything.
KEEP READING
The Karlsruhe judges have agreed to set the number of seats at 630 and thus abolish the allocation of extra seats. But they consider it unconstitutional to remove the exception that allows parties that fall below 5% to enter the Bundestag if they win three or more direct mandates. The ruling says that the threshold is correct to avoid fragmentation, but that there must be some safeguard so that all votes have the same value and those who have supported a party that wins less than 5% are represented.
Vote fragmentation
The progressive fragmentation of the vote in Germany had made the previous system unviable. It had worked well for decades because two large parties dominated, the SPD and the CDU with the CSU (they share a parliamentary group in Berlin). The emergence of other parties complicated the system and added deputies who increased the cost of the Parliament for the public coffers. For years, all parties have been in favour of a reform, but no government had taken the step of trying to do so.
Bavarian President Markus Söder welcomed the verdict. “It is a clear success for the CSU and for Bavaria, and a slap in the face for the traffic light [nombre con el que se conoce al tripartito, por los colores —rojo, amarillo y verde— de los partidos de la coalición]. The electoral manipulation has been exposed and rejected by the courts,” he told the DPA agency, and announced that if he is part of the next Executive he will demand the repeal of Scholz’s rule. The Bavarian government had appealed the reform to the Constitutional Court, together with the CSU, the CDU and Die Linke. “The attempt by the traffic light “The attempt to eliminate political competitors using the right to vote has failed,” opposition leader Friedrich Merz reacted on his X account.
The Left Party was also pleased. Gesine Lötzsch, a member of parliament, called the decision to remove the exception to the 5% rule “undemocratic” and said in an interview on public broadcaster ARD that the Constitutional Court “corrected it correctly.” Nevertheless, she considered it a “partial success” because from now on there will be candidates who received the most votes in their constituency who will lose their seats. She herself won her seat by direct mandate in the Berlin district of Lichtenberg, in the former East Berlin, in 2021.
The Social Democrats do not consider the high court’s ruling a defeat. At least publicly, they claim that the ruling endorses the bulk of their reform. “The most important thing is clear from this ruling: the reduction in the size of the German Bundestag is complete and constitutional,” said Deputy SPD parliamentary group leader Dirk Wiese. “It puts an end to the additional and compensatory seats, which have continuously enlarged the Bundestag and thus jeopardized its ability to function,” he added.
Follow all the international information at Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.
