Berlin – A vote was held in the parliament on the issue of sharply reducing the number of MPs in Germany. With more votes in favour, the number of seats in Parliament will be reduced from 736 to 630 in the next election. The plan, put forward by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats and allies the Greens and the liberal FDP, received 399 votes in favor. 261 opposed. 23 people remained neutral and abstained.
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The German parliament is a complex voting system that evolves with each election. In Germany, each person can directly cast one vote for a candidate and another vote for a party. But for a party to be recognized in the parliament, it needs to get five percent of the votes. That limit can only be waived if a party directly wins three seats.
Smaller parties such as the far-left Linke and former Chancellor Merkel’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU, were worried about losing the five percent threshold. The opposition accused the voting rights reform of being an attack on democracy. The German Taxpayers’ Federation estimates that the new reform could save the country 340 million euros per election.
English Summary: germany cut off number of mp in parliament