Germany: Lawmakers approve plan to shrink bloated parliament; two opposition parties criticise move

German lawmakers on Friday (March 17) approved a plan to shrink the country's increasingly bloated Parliament. However, two opposition parties, the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Left Party,were vehemently critical and the plan is expected to face a court challenge. Parliament's lower house, also known as Bundestag, currently has a record 736 members, a report by the news agency Associated Press said. The changes approved on a 400-261 vote with 23 abstentions would reduce this number to 630.

During elections in Germany, every voter gets two votes,one for a directly elected candidate, the other for a party list. Each of the country's 299 constituencies elects the legislative representative directly by a simple majority vote. And at least 299 further seats go to candidates elected on party lists.

If a party in Germany wins more seats via the direct vote than it would get under the party vote, it keeps the extra seats — but more seats are added for other parties to ensure the proportional vote is reflected accurately.

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As the country's traditional big parties have continued to dominate the direct vote even as their overall support has declined, that can result in the Bundestag having many more lawmakers than the minimum requirement of 598. The plan drawn off by the governing coalition would set the size of the lower house of parliament to 630 seats.

“The people of our country...expect us to be capable of reform, and to show that we, too, are prepared to accept cutbacks,” Dirk Wiese, a lawmaker with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, said on Friday.

The Associated Press reported on Friday that under the new system, parties would have to win five per cent of the vote share in the division of seats and the three-winner option would be eliminated. The report also said that no extra seats would be added to allow all direct constituency winners to take their seats. This would meanthat the worst-performing candidates could miss out.

Slamming the government's decision, CSU lawmaker in Berlin Alexander Dobrindt said, "You set out to shrink the German parliament; what you’re doing now is shrinking the opposition in this parliament."

(With inputs from agencies)

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