Change of party (politics)
A party changes is the outlet of a politician from a party and the entry to another.
General
In democracies , changing parties is a legitimate process. The frequency of party changes depends on the stability of the party system. While party conversions are rare in Germany, they happen more often in other (especially southern) countries. In a number of countries with a poorly developed democratic tradition, there is a change of party for money, offices or other advantages, the so-called purchase of parliamentarians . Party changes occur more frequently when parties change political direction, form new coalitions or split into parties .
The decision of the FDP to enter into a social liberal coalition with the SPD in 1969 led to a large number of party changes from national liberal MPs to the Union parties . As a result, Willy Brandt mathematically lost his majority in the German Bundestag . Brandt was only able to ward off the subsequent vote of no confidence with the votes of two dissenters in the opposition, from whom Julius Steiner had accepted bribes from the Stasi .
There are frequent party changes among the states of Europe, particularly in Italy , which impair the stability of the governments. Since 1945 Italy has seen more than 60 government formations.
Double membership in several parties
It happens that politicians join other parties without leaving their old party. However, the party statutes usually exclude double membership so categorically that an exclusion procedure from the previous party is inevitable. In Germany, the Party of Humanists , New Liberals , the Pirate Party , Democracy in Movement and Die PARTEI offer double membership. Since, according to Section 21 of the Federal Election Act , candidates for the German Bundestag may not be members of another party, double membership means that those concerned are not allowed to run for the Bundestag.
Loss of mandates
A key issue when changing parties is the question of whether offices or mandates that the politician in question has won for or on lists of the previous party should be given up when the party changes. This is particularly important in the case of list elections in which a successor to the previous party would receive the mandate (which would not change the majority in parliament).
In Germany, Austria and Switzerland the principle of the free mandate applies . The consequence of this free mandate is that the politician who changes party is allowed to keep his mandate. However, this only applies to mandate holders. In the case of successors , some electoral laws (e.g. in Section 34 (2), point 1 of the Hessian Local Election Act ) stipulate that successors who have left the list-making party before assuming a mandate cannot move up.
The rule that elected officials keep their mandate does not apply everywhere. A number of states envisage or provided for the elimination of the mandate when changing parties. Often this is justified with the prevention of parliamentary purchases. A historical example is the Political Parties Act of 1962 from Pakistan .
In the first free Volkskammer election in 1990, Section 41 (2) of the Volkskammer election law stipulated that a change of party should result in the loss of the Volkskammer mandate. On July 20, 1990, the People's Chamber changed the electoral law and thus enabled Peter-Michael Diestel to move from the DSU to the CDU and to dissolve the DBD / DFD parliamentary group.
Individual evidence
- ^ Federal statutes for the Party of Humanists
- ↑ Federal statutes of the Pirate Party
- ↑ Statute DEMOCRACY ON THE MOVE
- ^ Statutes of the PARTY
- ↑ Hans-Peter Schneider, Wolfgang Zeh: Parliamentary Law and Parliamentary Practice in the Federal Republic of Germany: a manual , 1989, ISBN 3110110776 , p. 500 f., Online
- ↑ § 34 Hessian Local Election Act
- ↑ D. Conrad: The New Establishment of the Constitution of Pakistan , p. 280, Online (PDF; 4.1 MB)
- ↑ Volkskammer election law - Journal of the GDR I p. 60 Online (PDF; 35 kB)
- ^ GDR suffrage
