Basic mandate

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Basic mandates are intended to represent regional or positional minorities in parliamentary systems. They can develop very different training courses and functionalities.

Suffrage

Germany

The term basic mandate describes different situations in Germany :

1. In the case of federal elections and some state elections , basic mandates are an alternative way of overcoming the threshold clause in personalized proportional representation ( basic mandate clause ).
2. In local parliaments, basic mandates are seats in committees with restricted rights for non-attached council members or members from smaller parliamentary groups ( basic mandate holders ).
3. In parties and associations , delegate keys with basic mandates are used to ensure the representation of member associations with few members at party or association days.

Bundestag election

After the Second World War , the legislature decided to create a five percent hurdle for the elections to the German Bundestag in order to reduce excessive differentiation of the party system and the associated difficulties in forming a stable government .

To this day, only parties that represent a recognized national minority or enter the Bundestag through basic mandates have been excluded from this five percent rule . If a party wins a certain minimum number of direct mandates , it moves into parliament with a number of seats proportional to its party's share of the vote, even if it does not jump the five percent threshold. In the Bundestag elections at the beginning of the 1950s , it was enough to win a direct mandate. The minimum number of direct mandates required to circumvent the five percent clause was later increased to three. One possibility of using the basic mandate clause is the piggyback procedure .

A party that moves in via the basic mandate clause is not considered a parliamentary group in the Bundestag , but only a " group ", which entails restricted rights of rules of procedure . For example, the ability to make inquiries to the government ( small inquiry , large inquiry ) is limited .

Case studies

In the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, only three parties have been able to send additional MPs to the Bundestag through basic mandates. In the 1950s, the German Party (DP) and the German Center Party (Zentrum), and after German reunification, the PDS benefited from the basic mandate clause of the federal election law .

In the Bundestag election in 1953 , the DP and the Center moved into the Bundestag due to their basic mandates. The DP received 3.3 percent of the vote and won ten constituencies, so that they could move into the Bundestag with 15 members. The center received 0.8 percent of the vote and was also able to move into the Bundestag because of a basic mandate it had won.

After the federal elections in 1957 , the German party moved into the Bundestag with 17 members. She had received six direct mandates; In some constituencies, the CDU decided not to list direct candidates in favor of the DP ( piggyback procedure ).

In the 1994 federal election , the PDS received 4.4 percent of the vote. Due to four direct mandates won in Berlin , she was able to form a group in the Bundestag with 30 members.

If a party receives one or two direct mandates and at the same time remains below the five percent hurdle, then only these one or two directly elected candidates move into the Bundestag, as was the case with the PDS after the 2002 Bundestag election .

criticism

The exemption from the five percent clause is legally and politically controversial. It was criticized that this exception could lead to the paradox of a very unequal distribution of seats. For example, if a party can only win 1.4 percent of the vote, but three or more direct mandates, it will reach the Bundestag; however, a rival party that might even win 4.9 percent of all votes but no direct mandate would fail.

In the 1990s, there was also political discussion about increasing the number of direct mandates required to override the five percent rule to five. This was justified with the enlarged Federal Republic after the reunification of 1990. This view was mainly represented by bourgeois and conservative politicians . They were accused of wanting to make the re-entry of the PDS into the Bundestag more difficult with this proposal.

literature

• Wolfgang Schreiber: Lemma basic mandate clause . in: Sommer & von Westphalen: Citizenship Lexicon. Oldenbourg Verlag Munich Vienna 2000, 423
• Dieter Nohlen : Lemmata personalized proportional representation and blocking clause in: Lexikon der Politik. 7th volumes. Munich: Beck Verlag 1992–1998. Digital library 2003
• Dieter Nohlen : Suffrage and party system: On the theory and empiricism of electoral systems. 6th edition Opladen: Leske and Budrich, UTB 2004

Diets

In some federal states , a basic mandate clause also applies to state elections, where one or two direct mandates are required.

Local politics

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In local parliaments, non-attached council members or smaller parliamentary groups are often only given a basic mandate in committees because they are not mathematically entitled to a seat due to their small number. As a basic mandate holder, they then have the right to speak and propose to the relevant committee , but are not allowed to vote (see, e.g. for Lower Saxony, Section 71 (3 ) NKomVG ). In the municipal parliaments of North Rhine-Westphalia, the so-called basic mandate holders only have the right to become members of a committee. You can choose this yourself, but have no voting rights. In the Parliament (Council) they may vote, but not put forward any motions. That degrades them to pure spectators. They cannot carry out the political mandate of conveying the will of the citizen into parliament through motions because they do not have the right to apply. They cannot comment on the motions of the other parties, as the motions are discussed and pre-decided in the specialist committees and the council itself is only the final decision-making body. Discussion of the subject is usually not permitted due to the committee work. The so-called lone fighters are largely excluded from political information and decision-making.

Parties and associations

Many parties and associations have very different strengths in different regions . In order to prevent regions with a particularly small number of members from not being represented at all at a party congress, for example , delegate keys with basic mandates are used. Each region is initially assigned a fixed number of basic mandates (usually one or two). Then the remaining mandates are distributed according to a certain procedure (for example according to d'Hondt ) according to the number of members.

Austria

Mandates are awarded in the National Council election in a three-stage investigation process : in the first stage at regional constituency level, in the second at regional constituency level and in the third at federal level. The "threshold clause" states that parties may only take part in the second (§101 (1) NRWO 1992) and third (§107 (2) NRWO 1992) stage of the awarding of mandates if they have at least four percent of the valid votes nationwide . A mandate at regional constituency level is therefore still possible regardless of the 4% hurdle at regional constituency level. A mandate that is achieved in this way is referred to as a "basic mandate".

If a party wins a basic mandate in the National Council election, it will be taken into account in the second (state lists) and third (federal lists) investigative proceedings regardless of the nationwide votes. It is not necessary to overcome the 4% hurdle otherwise necessary to join the National Council , which is why a basic mandate can be important.

The number of votes is calculated by dividing the number of valid votes cast in a federal state by the number of mandates to be awarded there (and then increasing it to the next whole number). If a party in a regional constituency receives at least as many votes as the number of votes in that federal state, a basic mandate will be awarded in the first investigation. (§96 (7) and §97 NRWO 1992)

In the case of state elections, mandates are awarded in a very similar way, although there is logically no third investigation procedure at federal level and the number of elections must be determined for the individual constituencies (and not for the federal states). In addition, the threshold clause in some federal states is 5% instead of 4%; In Styria, a basic mandate must be obtained in order to be able to participate in the nationwide award of mandates.

example

State of Carinthia | Valid votes 338 000 | Mandates to be awarded 13

The number of elections is therefore 338,000 / 13 = 26,000. This is how many votes are necessary in a constituency in Carinthia to achieve a basic mandate.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ § 6 Paragraph 3 Clause 1 BWG (Federal Election Act)