Electoral reform: CSU and Left Party on the barricades

The CSU and the left rarely agree – but the traffic light plans for electoral reform drive them both to the barricades. They fear for their entry into Parliament. The vote in the Bundestag today is likely to be loud.

Rolf Mützenich stands at the parliamentary group level and looks innocent. “We didn’t want to annoy anyone at all,” says the SPD faction leader. That is not successful. The traffic light has caused so much trouble with its electoral law reform that even Dietmar Bartsch, leader of the left parliamentary group, and Alexander Dobrindt, leader of the CSU, have the same opinion.

Dispute over basic mandate clause

Dobrindt accuses the SPD, Greens and FDP of manipulating the electoral law in their favor. Bartsch speaks of an “open attack on the left”. What unites the CSU and the left: your guarantee of survival is in danger. Because the traffic light wants to overturn the so-called basic mandate clause. Lawyers had recommended removing this exception in the electoral law. It cannot be reconciled with the rest of the reform.

The basic mandate clause ensures that parties below the five percent hurdle can enter parliament if they win three constituencies directly. Without this rule, the Left Party would not now be a parliamentary group in the Bundestag.

The CSU only competes in Bavaria. But because it is an independent party, it has to get more than five percent of the votes nationwide. In the last federal election it was 5.2 percent. If she breaks the five percent hurdle, her current 45 direct mandates will be of no use in the future. She would no longer be represented in the Bundestag.

That leaves the SPD faction leader cold. Then the CSU would have to join forces with the CDU, says Mützenich: “To be honest, I don’t care at all.”

Controversy over “second vote coverage”

For the CSU, the abolition of the basic mandate clause is still a theoretical problem. A practical problem, on the other hand, is the so-called “second vote coverage” in the traffic light plans. Because there will be no more overhang and compensation mandates in the future, constituency winners must meet an additional condition in order to get into the Bundestag: their party must have enough votes for it.

For example, if a party wins 40 constituencies in a state outright but has only second votes for 30 constituencies, the ten candidates with the weakest first vote results will get nothing.

That would probably be the case above all in eastern Germany, where the race between the parties is particularly close. And in the big cities in Bavaria.

Big cities in Bavaria without CSU MPs?

The CSU candidates, for example in Munich, Nuremberg and Augsburg, could fail in rows. Calculated with the results of the first votes in the 2021 federal election, constituency winners would go away empty-handed with 25 to 35 percent.

The CSU currently has eleven overhang mandates. Because it is running as an independent party, its overhang mandates are compensated for by all other parties – including the CDU.

Up to three overhang mandates will not be compensated. The CDU, CSU and SPD decided that in their 2020 electoral law reform. The then opposition parties Greens, FDP and Left are currently complaining before the Federal Constitutional Court. It has not yet been finally decided.

630 MPs

The traffic light plans have the disadvantage that individual constituencies could remain orphaned due to the lack of second vote coverage. That is why the SPD, Greens and FDP are making their downsizing less than originally planned. Instead of 598, 630 deputies are now planned as a fixed size. The AfD suspects that this should secure the approval of the SPD.

While the Greens and FDP parliamentary groups unanimously approved the reform plans in the parliamentary group meetings on Tuesday, the SPD had individual dissenting votes and abstentions.

A clear no comes from the Union publicly. CDU leader Friedrich Merz accuses the traffic light of violating the principles of an election with its plans. He calls the reform “the suffrage of the cheated voter.” But if you believe the stories from the traffic lights, then there is definitely sympathy for the reform in the Union.

CDU and CSU disagree on voting rights?

FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr claims to have observed that the unwillingness to reform is much more pronounced in the CSU than in the CDU. Since the intra-union fight for the chancellor candidacy between CSU leader Markus Söder and Armin Laschet in spring 2021, the willingness of many CDU MPs to go into battle for the Bavarian sister party seems to have been limited.

It was above all the FDP that has repeatedly tried in recent weeks to get the CDU MPs on board with the electoral reform. Among other things, with the argument that a five percent hurdle is not unusual without exception. Group leader Dürr refers to the relevant rules for the state elections in Bavaria and local elections in many federal states.

No compromise in sight

Until the beginning of the week, Ampel and Union were still looking for a compromise. But when it comes to electoral law, two worlds collide: the Union wins many constituencies. She wants the first vote to hold her weight. Greens and FDP are more likely to go to parliament via state lists. For them, the second voice is more important. Bipartisan electoral reform is so hard to do.

Britta Haßelmann tried for a long time – in vain. The Greens faction leader blames the CSU for this: “If there is a political force that always says: Not with me. Or: Is it going to my advantage? Then you rarely get a result.”

The traffic light wants to end that. She emphasizes that all parties lost seats equally in their reform. That is fair and constitutional. The judges of the Federal Constitutional Court will probably decide that. The Left Party, the Union and the Free State of Bavaria are already in the starting blocks to take legal action against the electoral reform.