Bundestag
Union faction: Signal for lawsuit against electoral law reform
The deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group: Thorsten Frei. photo
© Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa
The CDU/CSU are sticking to their lawsuit in Karlsruhe against the traffic light electoral reform. The non-allocation of mandates and the omission of the basic mandate clause is unconstitutional.
The head of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag assumes that a lawsuit will be filed in Karlsruhe, despite the latest traffic light proposals for subsequent changes to the electoral law reform.
A main thrust of such an abstract lawsuit by the Union MPs against the new electoral law passed by the traffic light would be the planned non-allocation of mandates won, said the parliamentary manager of the CDU/CSU MPs, Thorsten Frei (CDU). This is a violation of the principle of democracy, the citizens would be called to a sham election. The abolition of the basic mandate clause is also highly problematic from a legal point of view.
He assumes that the parliamentary group meeting in the afternoon will send the signal “that we will definitely have the election law reviewed in Karlsruhe,” said Frei. For an abstract control of norms, 25 percent of the deputies are necessary – that’s 184 – the Union has 197 parliamentarians. He is sure that all members of the CDU and CSU would participate.
Frei called the proposal by SPD MP Axel Schäfer to lower the five percent hurdle to four percent to compensate for negative consequences, especially for the CSU and the left, highly irritating. Schäfer has neither a party nor a parliamentary group office, he cannot speak for the SPD parliamentary group, let alone for the coalition. If the five percent mark is lowered, there is also a fundamental risk that there will be more parliamentary groups in the Bundestag and that this will not make it easier to form a government. The danger that there is no stable government would not do the country any good.
The coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP had decided on an electoral law reform in order to permanently reduce the Bundestag, which had inflated to 736 MPs, to 630 MPs. The so-called basic mandate clause should be dropped. So far, it has ensured that parties with the strength of their second vote result in the Bundestag also entered the Bundestag if they were less than five percent but won at least three direct mandates. The Left Party benefited from this in 2021, which had only achieved 4.9 percent of the second votes. The CSU came to 5.2 percent in 2021, but won almost all direct mandates in Bavaria.