2024-08-04 10:10:44
Karlsruhe has decided. The new electoral law is partly unconstitutional. Will there be a reform of the reform before the 2025 federal election? One thing is clear: after the election, the CSU wants to change a lot more.
The SPD sees no need to immediately change the electoral law following the Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling. “There is currently no urgent need for legislative action,” said SPD deputy parliamentary group leader Dirk Wiese to the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland. “The next Bundestag should, however, deal with the matter at the latest so that the electoral law can be adjusted to include the threshold clause for the 2029 federal election.”
Wiese points out that the Federal Constitutional Court has shown different solutions in its decision. These include an adjustment of the so-called basic mandate clause, the modification of the five percent hurdle or a list alliance of the CDU and CSU. “The latter in particular would be a legally secure way,” said the SPD politician.
The Federal Constitutional Court has declared the repeal of the so-called basic mandate clause in the new electoral law to be unconstitutional. This rule, which was abolished by the traffic light coalition, stipulated in the old electoral law that parties could enter the Bundestag based on the strength of their second vote even if they were below the five percent hurdle but won at least three direct mandates.
The court has now reinstated this regulation until the legislature has passed a new regulation. However, the Karlsruhe judges have confirmed another key element of the electoral reform, the limitation of the Bundestag to 630 members and the elimination of the so-called overhang and compensatory mandates.
This means that in future the number of seats in parliament will be determined solely by the second vote result of a party – even if it has won more direct mandates. In this case, the constituency winners with the worst first vote results will go away empty-handed. This has been criticized in particular by the CSU, which has often won direct mandates almost across the board in Bavaria.
CSU leader Markus Söder has already announced that a Union-led federal government would like to correct the new allocation rules: “For the CSU, this is a coalition condition for the next federal government,” said the Bavarian Prime Minister.
SPD leader Saskia Esken rejected the demand: “If Söder wants to reverse the now successful reform of the traffic light coalition, he is accepting that the Bundestag will continue to grow to over 800 seats,” Esken told the RND. Söder has not made any constructive contribution to the reform of the electoral law in the past. The last reform attempt also failed because it provided unjustified advantages for the CSU.
However, criticism of the ruling also came from former Bundestag President Norbert Lammert. “The only thing that the normal voter understands about the German electoral system is that he chooses his constituency representative with his first vote. And it is precisely this one transparent part of the electoral system that is now being relativized,” the CDU politician told the RND. The really astonishing part of the ruling for him, however, is “how much the Federal Constitutional Court takes into account the possibility of the formation of parliamentary groups, in this case the Union.”