CSU foams – law for Roth?
Saxony-Anhalt loses constituency in favor of Bavaria
February 1, 2024, 6:34 p.m
Population development requires political adjustments, that’s what the law says. Saxony-Anhalt loses one constituency, while Bavaria gains one. However, the Union criticizes the cut – and is facing significant headwind from the traffic light government.
The Bundestag has decided to change the federal electoral law, according to which Saxony-Anhalt will lose one constituency and Bavaria will gain one. Due to population development, the previous Anhalt constituency should be dissolved and a Memmingen-Unterallgäu constituency should be re-established in southwest Bavaria, the Bundestag decided with a majority of the traffic light factions. Disputes arose in the debate about the layout of the new Bavarian constituency. The CDU accused the coalition of “arbitrariness” and “manipulation”. The traffic light parties defended themselves against criticism.
The new constituency in the administrative district of Swabia will be formed from parts of neighboring districts. The Union sees itself at a disadvantage due to the layout because it also separates the traditionally strong CSU-dominated community of Königsbrunn from the otherwise urban constituency of Augsburg-Stadt.
This reduces the CSU’s chances of winning the direct mandate in question and increases those of the Green Party candidate Claudia Roth, complained CSU politician Alexander Hoffmann. “The ‘traffic light’ is ringing behind closed doors and doing what is useful to it,” said Hoffmann. In the Augsburg-Stadt constituency, the CSU candidate Volker Ullrich won the direct mandate in the last federal election with 28.1 percent of the first votes. Roth got 20.6 percent and entered the Bundestag via the Green Party’s state list.
The Union had called for the additional Bavarian constituency to be set up in Munich instead. CDU leader Friedrich Merz called the plan a “manipulation of the electoral law” that would cause “serious damage to our country’s democracy.” The head of the CSU regional group in the Bundestag, Alexander Dobrindt, spoke of a “peak of audacity”.
“Curb your language”
The SPD MP Sebastian Hartmann replied to the Union during the Bundestag debate: “Rein in your language.” The change in electoral law is not a manipulation, but rather a “binding to law and order,” said Hartmann, referring to a recommendation from the Federal Returning Officer who suggested this approach. The CSU claims to represent Bavarian interests, but in reality only represents its own interests.
“Next year there will be a federal election, this year the preparations will begin, so it is important that the traffic light now creates legal certainty,” said parliamentary group vice-president Dirk Wiese to the “Rheinische Post”. Merz is damaging “the credibility of our democracy with his irresponsible half-knowledge.”
In the future, Saxony-Anhalt will only have eight constituencies in the federal election instead of nine, and Bavaria will have one more in the future, i.e. 47. The change in the law was necessary because the population development in the relevant federal states and constituencies differed too greatly.
According to the current law, the population with a German passport in a constituency may not exceed the average population of all constituencies by more than 25 percent. This is around 240,000. However, the Bavarian constituencies of Augsburg-Land and Ostallgäu, each with almost 300,000 inhabitants, exceed this limit with almost 26 percent each.
Law forces a new approach
In such cases, the Federal Election Act requires a new approach. Against this background, the Green Party right-wing politician Till Steffen called it “completely right” to re-establish the constituency in the region in which the population limit has already been exceeded by two constituencies.
Due to the elimination of the Anhalt constituency, six of the remaining eight constituencies in Saxony-Anhalt will also be redesigned and partially renamed. Kay-Uwe Ziegler won the direct mandate for the Anhalt constituency in the 2021 federal election for the AfD with 24.2 percent of the first votes. The new electoral law deliberately tailors the constituencies in such a way “that it harms the AfD,” said AfD MP Christian Wirth in the debate.
The changes should apply to the federal election planned for 2025. The total number of 299 constituencies in Germany should not be changed by the new layout.