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Voting at an FDP party conference: An application for a new quorum for member surveys has been submitted
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / dpa
The FDP is struggling to increase the number of future supporters in member surveys.
At the upcoming federal party conference at the end of April, delegates want to request that the previous number of 500 supporters be increased to 2.5 percent of the party's total members in the future.
Accordingly, around 1,800 signatures would be necessary in the future.
There are currently around 72,000 people who are members of the Liberals.
The current low quorum encourages more surveys “to be carried out on less important topics,” say the applicants.
Most recently, an FDP member survey to leave the traffic light coalition narrowly failed.
The Bundestag member and defense expert Marcus Faber pleaded for reform in SPIEGEL.
He did his doctorate on direct democracy and therefore considers the entry threshold of 2.5 percent to be “appropriate” given his experiences.
“In particular, flexible values are much better suited than fixed numbers,” says Faber.
The Saxony-Anhalt FDP state leader and state minister Lydia Hüskens explained that, in her view, it is important for every party that members can participate as low a threshold as possible.
“That’s why participation formats should never be given up lightly.”
On the other hand, votes in which there is only yes or no would also carry the risk of excluding many positions that lie between the extremes.
“That’s why we will have to discuss this intensively,” said Hüskens, member of the FDP presidium.
Thuringia's FDP leader Thomas Kemmerich said that, in principle, upper limits could always be reassessed.
“But in my opinion, what they are planning to do now is the wrong approach because it pushes the limit too high.”
more on the subject
Interview with FDP Minister Hüskens: "The Greens remain a potential partner" An interview by Christoph Schult and Severin Weiland
After the traffic light survey: FDP delegates want a higher quorum for the member surveyBy Severin Weiland
Crisis of the FDP:The tragedy of Christian LindnerThe SPIEGEL editorial by Severin Weiland
With a narrow majority: FDP members vote to stay in the traffic lights
Especially as a digital party, the FDP could handle things very easily, but the application "gives the impression that they want to keep a minority out of future member surveys by increasing the number of signatures."
The initiator of the most recent vote, Kassel FDP politician Matthias Nölke, also criticized the matter.
He will be a delegate at the upcoming federal party conference in Berlin at the end of April.
After a member survey was used for the first time in ten years, "some officials immediately want to make it more difficult to do so."
He considers this “a fatal signal from a liberal party.”
At the beginning of January, the federal party published the results of a member survey initiated by Nölke and colleagues in favor of leaving the traffic light coalition.
The result was closer than expected, with a vote of around 52 percent in favor of remaining in the coalition.
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