Berlin, Mar 18 (Representative) The Bundestag on Friday adopted an electoral reform that will limit the number of seats in German parliament to 630 from 736 starting from the next legislative term, with opposition parties speaking out against the changes and vowing to challenge them in court. As many as 400 lawmakers, mostly representing the ruling “traffic light” coalition, voted in favor of the reform, 261 voted against and 23 more abstained. During federal parliamentary elections in Germany, each voter has two votes: one for a directly elected candidate and another one for a party list candidate. It means that each of the country’s 299 constituencies elects its own candidate directly by a simple majority vote and at least another 299 seats in parliament are going to candidates on party lists. Under the current system, if a party wins more seats via direct vote than it gets under the party list vote, it could keep these extra seats, but other parties receive additional seats to ensure that the proportional vote is accurately reflected in the Bundestag.
A party could also obtain representation in parliament if it wins at least three direct seats, even despite failing to reach the 5% threshold of the party list vote. The reform proposes to set a constant number of lawmakers by eliminating the extra seats, meaning that not every direct constituency winner will eventually make it to the parliament. The new legislation will also remove the so-called three-winner option so each party will need to secure 5% of the party vote to create a parliamentary group.Criticism comes from the parties that see themselves mostly affected by the reform. Alexander Dobrindt, the leader of the Christian Social Union opposition Bavarian regional faction in the Bundestag, whose party tends to win most of direct seats in Bavaria, called the reform “an act of disrespect for voters and democracy.
“CSU chief Markus Soeder stated that the new law would be challenged in the German Federal Constitutional Court “in the coming months. “The new law is “the biggest blow” to democracy in decades, according to Jan Korte, a lawmaker of The Left Party, which fell short of 5% support during the 2021 election but won three direct seats and thus managed to establish a parliamentary group in the Bundestag. The election reform in Germany has been widely discussed for many years, with all parties agreeing on the necessity to reduce the parliament’s size but having different approaches to the issue. With 736 seats, the Bundestag is now the world’s second-largest parliament after the National People’s Congress in China. The changes are expected to go into effect during the next election scheduled to take place in 2025.