Saturday, September 4th 2021
Parliament is getting bigger and bigger
XXL Bundestag damaged democracy’s reputation
By Konstantin Kuhle
Surveys suggest that the next Bundestag could have up to 950 members. Such a mega-parliament would be the symbol of a policy in which structural reforms are no longer possible.
An interesting trend can be observed in this Bundestag election campaign: those citizens who are already interested in politics are all the more interested in view of the directional decision on September 26th. But those who have turned away from the political system and democracy seem all the more disinterested. All democratic parties have the task of reaching people in the run-up to an election who distance themselves from the institutions of liberal democracy. But for this to happen, these institutions themselves must have the necessary integrity to inspire a minimum of trust.
Nobody can reliably predict the exact result of the federal election these days. But the survey institutes agree on one thing: the number of MPs will rise rapidly again. On the basis of current opinion polls, a parliamentary size of up to 950 members is forecast. The statutory number of members of the German Bundestag is 598. In the current legislative period, 709 parliamentarians belonged to the Bundestag. Since the so-called overhang mandates, in which a party in a federal state wins more constituencies than it is entitled to according to the two-vote result, have been completely offset by additional mandates for the other parties, the German parliament has been growing.
Such a parliament with almost a thousand members threatens to become a symbol for a republic in which structural reforms are no longer possible. Not even the political establishment itself is able to reform itself. During the pandemic, many citizens had to tighten their belts. At the same time, the state has not shown itself to be at its best. The deficits in the digitization of public administration, the health and education systems have rather come to light. Nobody should understand if, in view of these omissions, the number of members of the Bundestag continues to increase.
The reform commission met once
During the past four years, the grand coalition of the Union and the SPD, in particular, has not been able to agree on a common stance. Effective proposals, which the FDP, the Left and the Greens rarely unanimously put forward, did not meet with approval from the government majority. The minimum consensus that Parliament passed last year against the votes of the opposition has hardly any dampening effect on the threatened growth of the Bundestag. It is also so complicated that even die-hard electoral law experts are at their wits end when they are asked to explain the rules by which parliament is composed. Above all, the right to vote should be understandable for the citizens who cast their votes in the election. The fact that the mini-repair by Union and SPD also provides that the Bundestag may deviate from the actual second vote result by up to three mandates puts the crown on the whole.
In addition to a moderate reduction in the number of constituencies, which will not come into force until 2025, the coalition also agreed to set up a reform commission in the current electoral term. However, since the days of the current Bundestag are numbered, this very commission will only meet for the second time in the coming week – without it having been able to start working properly.
One of the foremost tasks of the next Bundestag is to reinstate the said reform commission as soon as possible and to resume deliberations on a new Bundestag electoral law. In accordance with its statutory mandate, the commission should advise not only on the federal election law, but also on the modernization of parliamentary work. How can parliament control the government more effectively? How can parliamentary operations be digitized? What options are there for the Bundestag to be more effectively involved in international decision-making processes, for example in the European Union? A reform commission should address these questions quickly after the election. The Commission should take no account of the potentially protracted formation of a government coalition, but should start work immediately. Because in the event of another XXL Bundestag, public outrage over the inability of the political establishment to reform will be great – and rightly so.
All actors involved must therefore be aware that an effective downsizing of parliament is not just about a symbolic issue – but about the integrity of the parliamentary system of government in a liberal democracy.
Konstantin Kuhle is the domestic political spokesman as well as the spokesman for the young group of the FDP parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. In weekly rotation with the left-wing politician Katja Kipping, he writes the column “Kipping or Kuhle” on ntv.de.
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