“Editorial error”
Hesse-SPD rows back on the right to vote for foreigners
September 19, 2023, 7:40 p.m
According to the election program, the SPD in Hesse wants to allow non-EU foreigners to vote in local elections. The competition is fuming at the suggestion. Without necessity. A transcription error changed an essential detail of the proposal.
The Hessian SPD has a passage to reform local electoral law for foreigners in their election program corrected. This is about the party’s proposal as to when foreigners who do not come from an EU country should be allowed to vote in local elections. The election program so far stated a duration of six months, but this was due to a transmission error, the party in Wiesbaden said. A period of six years is correct.
A new state parliament will be elected in Hesse on October 8th. The SPD parliamentary group in the Hessian state parliament had already decided on a position paper in May 2022, the content of which was incorporated into the election program. “Due to an editorial error, the six years specified as a deadline in the group paper became six months when the position was transferred to our election program,” explained General Secretary Christoph Degen. “The wording in the election program is simply wrong and does not correctly reflect the decision-making position of the SPD Hesse and the SPD parliamentary group in the Hesse state parliament.” The regulation should also only apply to non-EU foreigners with a permanent residence permit.
The original demand of the Hesse SPD, led by top candidate Nancy Faeser, was met with sharp criticism from the Union, FDP and AfD. Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder, for example, called the six-month initiative an “absurd idea”. What is needed is “an effective restriction on uncontrolled immigration and not an expansion of the right to vote,” wrote Söder on Facebook.
According to the SPD, the error has now been corrected in the election program posted online. A note has been added to make the change transparent. The “Bild” newspaper, among others, had previously reported on the passage in the SPD’s election program and its top candidate, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. Foreigners from EU countries have been allowed to vote in local elections in Germany for over 30 years.