Constitutional Court examines traffic light electoral law reform

The Bundestag is supposed to become smaller again as a result of the electoral law reform – but this is met with resistance from the Union and the Left Party. The latter even assumes that the traffic light has political goals. The Federal Constitutional Court is now negotiating.

“We are in Karlsruhe today before the Federal Constitutional Court because we unfortunately have to sue against the voting rights passed by the traffic light last year,” said CDU chairman Friedrich Merz before the start of the oral hearing before the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. “The traffic light voting right violates the equal opportunities of the political parties in the German Bundestag in an almost gross manner.”

He is not the only one who appears in front of the press before the start of the negotiations. A large number of critics of the new voting law have arrived. Martin Schirdewan, co-leader of the Left Party, also wants the new electoral law to be overturned.

He and his party colleagues are of the opinion that the traffic light coalition is also pursuing a political goal – “namely, to get rid of unpleasant competition through the election, so to speak.” The traffic light thereby creates a political advantage.

Smaller Bundestag without Overhang mandates

The CSU and the Left feel threatened by the new voting rights, which were passed last year with the majority of the traffic light coalition. The Bundestag should be significantly smaller. So new rules were introduced that tend to cause problems for smaller parties.

For example, the so-called overhang mandates were abolished. Up to now it was like this: If a party got a lot of first votes because its candidates were very popular, but it didn’t do so well with the second votes, it received more seats than it was basically entitled to.

Greens defend reform

So that the other parties were not the losers in the relationship, they were given so-called compensatory mandates. Till Steffen from Alliance 90/The Greens defends the fact that all of these additional mandates have been abolished. The Bundestag has become increasingly larger; after the last election it had 736 seats – more than ever before.

After long debates, the coalition would have reformed the electoral law, otherwise there could still have been more MPs. “We said: This has to end – and we created voting rights that are simple and fair,” says Steffen.

630 seats as an upper limit

Now there should only be a maximum of 630 seats in the Bundestag for the next election. And something else has changed. Until now, only parties that won at least five percent of the second votes could enter the Bundestag. Unless they received three direct mandates in the first votes.

This so-called basic mandate clause was intended to ensure that people who are particularly valued by voters also take part in parliament, even if their party is not particularly strong.

point of contention Basic mandate clause

The Left Party benefited from this basic mandate clause in 2021. She did not reach the five percent threshold for the second votes, so normally she would not have been represented in the Bundestag. But because of the three direct mandates she won, she still moved in. The CSU could also be affected by the removal of the basic mandate clause.

The Constitutional Court wants to negotiate the new electoral law today and tomorrow. Above all, it wants to find out more from experts about the effects of the new law.