Wagenknecht fails: Constitutional court rejects lawsuits!

Wagenknecht fails: Constitutional court rejects lawsuits!

The Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) has suffered a significant setback: Before the Federal Constitutional Court, the party's lawsuits, who aimed at obtaining a new count of the votes in the Bundestag election. The court declared the two organizations inadmissible and confirmed that the BSW could not adequately prove how its right to equal opportunities was violated. This decision represents another damper for the still young party, which only received 4.981 percent of the votes in the Bundestag election in February and thus narrowly at the Five-Proofent-Hürde failed.

The BSW had called for the legal remedy to act against the allocation of the seats. In its complaints, the party argued that votes were not correctly assigned or rated as invalid. However, these allegations were rejected both in March by several urgent applications and now by the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court. The second Senate of the court pointed out that the BSW should have used the usual election examination process in the Bundestag.

The five percent clause in German voting rights

The Five-Proofent hurdle is a central element of German voting rights. Parties must receive at least five percent of the valid second votes to win seats in the Bundestag. Otherwise votes for parties that do not overcome this hurdle will fall for the end. This regulation was reformed in 2023 with the abolition of the basic mandate clause, but remains of crucial importance for the distribution of seats.

In 2024, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the five percent blocking clause as unconstitutional. The court emphasized the need to take into account cooperating parties in the distribution of seats and ordered a modification of the regulation until the next Bundestag election. At the moment, the old regulation remains temporary, with parties in fewer than three constituencies in which they have received most of the first voices, excluding the distribution of seats.

context and future prospects

The continued discussion about the five percent hurdle shows the tensions within the German political system. Experts criticize the clause as a restriction of equality of choice. In the 2013 federal election, for example, there were 6.8 million dilapidated votes, which made the demands for a reduction in the hurdle loud. The aim of the regulation remains to promote stable majorities and to prevent the people from fragmentation.

The reform of the right to vote in June 2023 and the restriction of the legal regulations of the Bundestag to 630 MPs are also in the context of current political development. The BSW is confronted with the fact that its path to the Bundestag representative is made more difficult by the rigid election conditions. In view of these challenges, it remains to be seen how the party and the political context will develop in Germany.