The daring action of the traffic light government to give Germany a new electoral law, which obviously puts the opposition at a disadvantage, was not even done when the SPD and the Greens announced the next step.
The right to vote is to be red-green again: more women should be in parliament, and 16-year-olds should be allowed to vote. However, both move on the border of unconstitutionality.
The Greens and Social Democrats want to take this risk, for them it is a matter of the heart about identity politics. It remains to be seen whether the Free Democrats will join in as coalition partners. In any case, they kept a low profile in the Bundestag.
“After the electoral reform is before parity, dear women”
In the general tumult of this heated electoral debate, the last two sentences of the Green Britta Haßelmann almost got lost. They read: “After the electoral reform is before parity, dear women. We’ll tackle that next.” The Bundestag should first vote on the extremely controversial changes to the electoral law.
Towards the end of the Bundestag debate, SPD MP Leni Breymaier went to the microphone. She belongs to the left wing of the SPD, “equality policy” is her hobby. It makes her “angry” that the current electoral reform does not deal with equality. It’s about “parity now”, because: “If there are more women in parliament, then different politics will be made.” (A claim for which there is no evidence so far.)
She hopes that as early as April the electoral law commission will make a proposal for a lower voting age to 16 and parity in the Bundestag, said Breymaier. If this is not the case, she is in favor of a cross-party initiative for a “parity law”.
Serious encroachment on the right to vote
The example of so-called parity is a good way of documenting the difference between equal rights and equality. In terms of elections, equality means that women must have the same chances of being elected as men.
Equality means that in the end there are actually as many women as men in the Bundestag. It is a serious encroachment on the right to vote. In principle, equal opportunities are replaced by equal results.
Although this kind of feminist domestic politics is a matter of a far-left concern, the left-wing politician Gesine Lötzsch asked the social democrat Bredemayer in astonishment how she now came to propose things that were not even included in the traffic light law for a new electoral law – and consequently are also not up for debate in the Bundestag.
Creation of a new electoral law according to Green-Red ideas not over
The SPD and the Greens wanted to make it clear that the creation of a new electoral law would not end with this day of debate, especially according to the Green-Red ideas. And it actually says so in the coalition agreement. Neither the FDP nor the Union responded to the proposal in the debate. But the AfD does.
Their deputy Albrecht Glaser, who had previously been a member of the CDU for 40 years, dealt with the two demands from a political point of view. Glaser is a qualified lawyer. According to Glaser, changing the voting age from 18 to 16 requires a constitutional amendment. However, there is no prospect of a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag for this.
In this respect, we are still a long way from an “infantilization of the right to vote”. Glaser also listed those countries where minors are allowed to vote: Cuba, Nicaragua, Sudan and North Korea.
Parity laws violate basic democratic principles
Glaser called the idea of parity in the German Bundestag unconstitutional, and in fact attempts at parity at state level have already been stopped by constitutional courts. This happened three years ago in Brandenburg and Thuringia. And the constitutional courts ruled that the parity laws violated basic democratic principles – electoral equality and free elections.
Glaser argued along these lines that the people of the state are not divisible, there are women and men, old and young, smart and not so smart. “Nobody has the right to group the identity of the people of the state,” he said – attacking a key point of green-red identity politics.
On an earlier occasion, the Senior President of the CDU, Wolfgang Schäuble, pointed out a fundamental error in the parity discussion. Parity therefore violates the idea of representation, according to which each MP represents the entire people and not one gender, one social group or whatever.
Traffic light parties change voting rights out of self-interest
In the Bundestag debate on the reduction of the Bundestag, it became clear how much the changes to the electoral law are in the self-interest of the traffic light parties, which at least creates the evil impression that the traffic light wants to cement its power over the electoral law for years to come. The FAZ therefore speaks of a “rogue piece” by the traffic light government.
At the very last minute, CDU party leader Friedrich Merz attempted to postpone the crucial third reading of the electoral law reform by two weeks in order to reach a cross-party agreement – given the fundamental importance. SPD faction leader Rolf Mützenich rejected this – unexcitedly, but clearly – from.
Merz and Mützenich then put their heads together and retreated to the back rows of the Bundestag for a confidential conversation. Which could also be related to considerations by the FDP. Several speakers from the Liberals, led by their parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr, offered to approach the Union again after the law had been passed. Shortly before the end of the discussion, the parliamentary manager Stefan Thomae said: “We are totally open.”
Which does not prevent the Union and the left from going before the Federal Constitutional Court. In the most beautiful harmony, the unequal lawsuit partners say that the traffic light is pursuing the goal of making the opposition small – or getting rid of it completely.
The chances that the Karlsruhe judges will collect the traffic light law should be good.
