Admin I Saturday, March 25, 2023
BERLIN – The leader of Germany’s main opposition party has rejected proposals from the government to amend an electoral reform law passed after heated debate by parliament last week.
The government in Berlin has suggested an amendment allowing the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) to stand together on one electoral list with its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).
The electoral reform passed last week enforces a strict 5% rule which excludes any party that does not reach this threshold of votes. The idea behind the reform is to reduce the current number of parliamentary representatives from 736 to 630.
Smaller parties, such as the CSU, could fall foul of this rule and could therefore have a tougher time getting its politicians into parliament. The idea behind putting the CDU and CSU together is that they would, as a combined party, enable the CSU to more easily gain seats in parliament.
The CDU head, Friedrich Merz, however, described the suggestion as an “overreach” by the coalition government, in remarks to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
“The proposal of a joint list is useless when it comes to solving the problem brought about by the [government] itself,” Merz said.
“CDU and CSU are two allied but independent parties that have decided to run in geographically different electoral areas and not to compete. This will remain so, no matter what other political parties think,” Merz explained.
The CSU – whose centre-right policies in general match those of the CDU, although it is arguably more conservative – runs for elections only in the southern state of Bavaria. The CDU fields candidates in all the other German states.
The two parties – together referred to in Germany as the “Union” – form one bloc in parliament and have a strong tradition of working together.
