Union presents proposal: Next idea for smaller Bundestag

Status: 01/20/2023 11:38 a.m

A good tenth of all constituencies should go: After the recent strong criticism of the traffic light draft, the Union is coming up with its own plan for electoral law reform. The East SPD is also struggling with the traffic light plans.

By Thomas Vorreyer, tagesschau.de

In the debate about reducing the size of the Bundestag, the Union has made a new proposal. According to an internal faction briefing, tagesschau.de is available, parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) and CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt want to reduce the number of constituencies to 270. With such a reform of the electoral law, 29 of the 299 constituencies were eliminated. The advance had already been submitted to the traffic light. The specialist information service “Table.Media” and the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported about it first.

If the Union has its way, the first 15 overhang mandates should not be compensated. The latter arise when a party wins more seats through direct mandates than it is entitled to based on the result of the second vote. A party that does not clear the five percent hurdle should only enter the Bundestag as a parliamentary group if it wins at least five direct mandates. There are currently three. The Left Party narrowly secured entry in the 2021 election.

In all likelihood, the CDU, CSU and SPD would benefit most from the union idea. The latter reacted negatively. “The Union’s proposal seems to have been knitted with a very hot needle,” said SPD parliamentary group leader Dirk Wiese of the AFP news agency. The CSU would continue to be preferred unilaterally, according to Wiese.

Eastern SPD members are having a hard time

The reform draft by the SPD, Greens and FDP, on the other hand, provides for the Bundestag to be strictly limited to its standard size of 598 seats. The candidates with the lowest first vote results should no longer automatically move into the Bundestag. Their constituencies were then left without directly elected or elected MPs. A few could even remain without political representation at all, even if no one from the constituency is elected via the party lists.

Union politicians had recently spoken out vehemently against it. There are also concerns in the SPD parliamentary group. Member of Parliament Erik von Malottki from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania said he wanted to vote against the plan in its current form. With the reform, there is “no longer any guarantee that every constituency is represented in the Bundestag,” von Malottki told ZEIT Online. Hard-fought constituencies, especially in eastern Germany, would be punished in this way. In the 2021 election, the candidates from the SPD, CDU and AfD were often only a few percentage points apart.

A vote in the SPD parliamentary group on Tuesday was clearly in favor of the traffic light draft. According to reports, MPs from the eastern German federal states in particular voted against it.

Traffic light draft “clear statement”

Encouragement comes from the chairman of the SPD state group Saxony-Anhalt, Martin Kröber. The traffic politician said tagesschau.de, the draft is a “clear statement” against the growing disenchantment with politics. “It is important for the population that we reduce the Bundestag to where it belongs,” said Kröber.

There are currently 736 MPs in the Bundestag – more than ever before. The draft reform of the traffic light is to be discussed in Parliament for the first time next week. The right to vote can be changed by the Bundestag with a simple majority. The traffic light has it, even if there are individual deviants. Usually, however, the broadest possible, cross-party consensus is sought on such issues. After that it still doesn’t look like it.

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