BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – The CDU/CSU and SPD are not making any progress with the planned electoral law reform – which is why the Union is now putting pressure on its coalition partner. “The electoral law reform must come, it is in the coalition agreement,” said CSU regional group leader Alexander Hoffmann to the German Press Agency in Berlin. “If someone wants to contribute to the success of this coalition agreement, they must also stick to the things we have agreed upon. Without this agreement, the CSU would not have signed the coalition agreement.”
The problem: The Union and the SPD have not yet found a consensual alternative to the voting rights introduced by the traffic light coalition in 2023.
The SPD’s demand for parity also stands in the way of an agreement – the Bundestag should in future be made up of half women and half men. Johannes Fechner, parliamentary director of the SPD parliamentary group, defends this. “For 77 years we have had it in the Basic Law that men and women have equal rights. But in parliament we are experiencing a regression, a decline in the proportion of women,” he told the dpa. “We want to take action against that.” Reform of the reform agreed in the coalition agreement
The coalition agreement stipulated that an electoral law commission should be set up. This should evaluate the traffic light voting law and present reform proposals in 2025. These should ensure that “every applicant can enter the Bundestag with a first-vote majority and that the Bundestag can fundamentally remain at its current size, taking into account the second-vote result.”
In addition, two test assignments were formulated: How can the equal representation of women in parliament be guaranteed? And should young people aged 16 and over be entitled to vote?
The electoral law passed by the SPD, Greens and FDP in 2023 reduced the size of the Bundestag from 736 to 630 members. This should not be reversed – at least the Union and the SPD largely agree on this.
“It remains our goal that the Bundestag does not expand. 630 members – that must be the benchmark. This goal is also achievable,” emphasizes CSU politician Hoffmann. “We should not adopt an electoral law that carries the risk of increasing the number of members to up to 750,” says SPD man Fechner with a warning tone. Because he sees this risk in the Union’s reform ideas.
To limit the number to 630 MPs, the traffic light abolished overhang and compensatory mandates, which had previously caused the Bundestag to swell from election to election. Overhang mandates arose when a party won more direct mandates with the first vote than it received based on the second vote. She was allowed to keep this – the other parties received compensatory mandates in return.
With the reform, a party’s second vote results became decisive for the number of its mandates. If she won more direct mandates than she was entitled to based on second votes, then the constituency winners with the worst first vote results went away empty-handed – this happened in 23 constituencies.
This still outrages the Union today. But the SPD is no longer happy with this regulation either. “The fact that not every constituency is represented in the Bundestag is a shortcoming that we want to eliminate,” says Fechner.
But how? One proposal from the Union is the so-called trench voting law. Half of the seats are awarded to directly elected constituency winners, the second half goes to list candidates based on the second vote result. The mandates are awarded completely separately. There is no calculation of direct mandates when allocating seats based on the share of second votes. This favors the strongest political force – according to the current polls, AfD and Union.
The Union can also imagine a new edition of the electoral law adopted by the SPD in 2020. The expansion of the Bundestag’s size was limited by leaving three overhang mandates unbalanced – up to 15 would be legally possible. In addition, in a second step, the number of constituencies should be reduced from 299 to 280.
The idea of a trench voting system absolutely horrifies electoral law expert Robert Vehrkamp. Because it would act as a booster for the AfD. “I consider a trench voting system to be completely irresponsible in the current polarized situation of the party system.”
And the professor who teaches at the Center for Democracy Research at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg can hardly imagine that the SPD would again agree to unbalanced overhang mandates. “Why should the SPD put this issue on the table again – in a situation in which it has no prospect of achieving overhang mandates for the time being?” In addition, with this system, the size of the Bundestag would be incalculable in every election. “That would be a wild game.”
What’s next? The electoral law commission has done its job, says Fechner. “Now the coalition committee would have to decide whether and how the electoral law should be changed.”/DP/he