The Union reacted negatively and angrily to a proposal by the traffic light coalition for drastic electoral law reform.

In the FAZ on Wednesday, the SPD, the Greens and the FDP proposed reducing the size of the Bundestag from the current 736 to 598 seats in the coming legislative period.

This is to be done by eliminating all overhang mandates.

As a result, there would no longer be any compensatory mandates.

A cross-party commission is to deal with the plans this week.

Peter Carstens

Political correspondent in Berlin

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The parliamentary manager of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei, told the FAZ: “It is very bad traffic light style to anticipate the deliberations of the electoral law commission.

We would like to be seriously informed about the project and not just read about it in the press.” Frei continued: “One thing is certain: the traffic light proposal does not contain any new ideas, and numerous legal concerns have already been raised against it in the past.

This model would damage the role of directly elected MPs and increase the distance between voters and legislators.

This increases disenchantment with politics.”

The traffic light proposal, which the three parties presented in a guest article for the FAZ, provides that a party in a country is only allocated as many constituency mandates as it is entitled to based on the result of the second vote.

If there are more, she does not get those constituencies in which she has the weakest first vote results compared to her others.

These constituencies are then allocated to another party, including so-called substitute votes.

Every voter should get a substitute vote in addition to the first vote.

CSU: Devaluation of the direct elements of democracy

This procedure was also criticized by the CSU politician Michael Frieser, who had already worked intensively on proposals for an electoral law reform in the previous legislative period.

Frieser told the FAZ that after first reading the proposal was "actually a well-known model of not allocating constituencies that have already been won." united in oneself – do not move into the German Bundestag.

Ultimately, this means a devaluation of the constituency idea and thus of the direct elements of democracy.” From his point of view, the planned introduction of a “substitute vote” will only make this problem even clearer.

It is "doubtful"

The traffic light can push through its proposal in the Bundestag with a simple majority.

So far, the CDU, CSU and SPD in particular have benefited from the overhang mandate regulation.

However, as a result of the compensatory mandates, all parties gained seats in the 2017 and 2021 federal elections.