The Mehr Demokratie association believes that changes to the electoral law are necessary after the Brandenburg state election in order to limit tactical voting. Calls for tactical voting are often a sign that something is wrong with the electoral system, said the spokesman for the Mehr Demokratie regional association, Oliver Wiedmann. “Voters should actually be able to vote for the parties with whose candidates and content they have the greatest overlap.”
Tactical voting occurs when voters do not vote for their preferred party, but for another political force in order to enable or prevent certain constellations. According to Mehr Demokratie, this could be counteracted by lowering the five percent hurdle to three percent.
Tactical voting could have unintended consequences, the association warned: “It is doubtful whether parts of the electorate were aware that they were helping the AfD to gain a blocking minority by voting for the SPD at the last second,” Wiedmann criticized.
Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke had brought the election campaign to a head with his statement that he would give up government responsibility if the AfD became the strongest force. According to preliminary official results, his SPD came in just ahead of the AfD.
The AfD, which the state’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies as a suspected right-wing extremist case, will therefore have more than a third of the seats in the new state parliament and thus has a so-called blocking minority. The party will therefore be able to prevent decisions that require a two-thirds majority in the future. This is relevant, for example, for the election of constitutional judges and constitutional amendments.
According to the preliminary official results, the Greens, the Left Party and the BVB/Free Voters failed to clear the five percent hurdle and are no longer represented in the new state parliament. They also did not win a direct mandate that would have allowed them to enter the parliament despite falling below the five percent hurdle.
The association Mehr Demokratie wants to prevent “many votes from falling by the wayside”. In order to develop proposals for possible changes to the electoral law, it advocates a dialogue forum with civil society actors and citizens – such as a round table or a citizens’ council.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:240923-930-241133/1
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