Election of the Presidium of the 16th German Bundestag
The Bureau of the 16th German Bundestag was in its constituent meeting on 18 October 2005 and in the 33rd meeting on 7 April 2006 elected . While the candidates from the CDU / CSU , SPD , FDP and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen were elected with two-thirds majorities and beyond, the Left Party.PDS candidate , Lothar Bisky , missed four ballots, including one in the second session on November 8th 2005, moving into the presidium. On April 7, 2006, Petra Pau , a deputy, was elected as a vice-president for the left-wing parliamentary group.
Election of the President of the Bundestag
The 12th President of the German Bundestag and successor to Wolfgang Thierse was CDU -Politiker Norbert Lammert selected. Of the 606 valid votes cast, he received 564 votes, 25 members of the Bundestag vote against him, 17 abstained. In relation to the total number of 614 members, Lammert received 91.9%. This was one of the best results so far for a President of the Bundestag in the history of the Federal Republic.
Determination of the number of vice-presidents
After adopting the rules of procedure , which stipulates in its § 2 that each “parliamentary group of the German Bundestag [...] is represented by at least one vice-president in the presidium”, the Bundestag decided with the votes of the CDU / CSU and SPD against the votes of the FDP, the Left Party and the Greens, to elect a total of six deputies, two of whom should come from the second largest parliamentary group, in this case the SPD.
Choice of CDU / CSU, SPD, FDP and Greens candidates
The CSU politician Gerda Hasselfeldt was elected Vice-President of the Bundestag with 510 votes in favor (83.1%), 47 against and 47 abstentions. Subsequently, the previous President of the Bundestag Wolfgang Thierse (SPD) was elected Norbert Lammert's deputy with only 417 votes (67.9%), 136 no votes and 52 abstentions. The social democratic group blamed the Union for the relatively high proportion of no votes; some parliamentary group members threatened to vote Angela Merkel in the election for Chancellor with correspondingly fewer votes.
The election of Susanne Kastner (SPD, 80.8%), Hermann Otto Solms (FDP, 79.2%) and Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Greens, 78.0%) was unproblematic.
Scandal about the election of Lothar Bisky
However, an incident occurred in the election of Left Party leader Lothar Bisky . The previous Vice President of the Brandenburg State Parliament received only 225 votes (36.6%) with 312 votes against and 55 abstentions in the first ballot. In the second ballot, too, with 282 votes (45.9%), he did not receive the necessary absolute majority of 308 votes.
The President of the Bundestag, Norbert Lammert, then announced that such a case was not regulated in the Bundestag's rules of procedure. However, he suggested that a relative majority should suffice in the third ballot, meaning that Bisky would be elected if he received more yes than no votes. However, the Bundestag decided on this solution against isolated objections from some MPs.
While Bisky would have achieved this relative majority in the second ballot (282: 235), he did not achieve it in the third ballot because only 248 MPs voted for him and 258 against him. The President of the Bundestag then closed the meeting, but made it clear that according to the rules of procedure, each parliamentary group would be entitled to a seat on the Presidium.
Follow-up to the meeting
Immediately after the meeting, Left Party parliamentary group leader Gregor Gysi announced that they wanted to hold on to Bisky as a candidate for vice president. Voices came from other parliamentary groups that Bisky had not been elected, among other things, because as party leader he was not trusted to hold the impartial office of Bundestag Vice-President.
Second session of the 16th German Bundestag
The parliamentary groups agreed in the Council of Elders that at the second session of the 16th German Bundestag on November 8, 2005, a fourth ballot should take place on Mr Bisky, in which - similar to the third ballot on October 18 - a simple majority would have been sufficient. He received 249 votes, while 310 MPs voted against him.
Thirty-third session of the 16th German Bundestag
In its 33rd session on April 7, 2006, the Bundestag again voted on a proposal from the left-wing parliamentary group. He elected Petra Pau, who had previously been proposed unanimously by her parliamentary group, with 385 votes in favor to 138 against and 58 abstentions. This completes the presidium of the 16th German Bundestag.
overview
| Election of the Presidium of the 16th German Bundestag on October 18, 2005 | ||||||||
| Office | Name (life data) | fraction | Ballot | Yes | No | abstention | percentage | chosen? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| president | Norbert Lammert (* 1948 ) | CDU / CSU | 1 | 564 | 25th | 17th | 91.9% | Yes |
| Vice President | Gerda Hasselfeldt (* 1950 ) | CDU / CSU | 1 | 510 | 47 | 47 | 83.1% | Yes |
| Vice President | Wolfgang Thierse (* 1943 ) | SPD | 1 | 417 | 136 | 52 | 67.9% | Yes |
| Vice President | Susanne Kastner (* 1946 ) | SPD | 1 | 496 | 61 | 42 | 80.8% | Yes |
| Vice President | Hermann Otto Solms (* 1940 ) | FDP | 1 | 486 | 85 | 31 | 79.2% | Yes |
| Vice President | Lothar Bisky ( 1941 - 2013 ) | The left. | 1 | 225 | 312 | 55 | 36.6% | No |
| Vice President | Katrin Göring-Eckardt (* 1966 ) | Green | 1 | 479 | 69 | 39 | 78.0% | Yes |
| Vice President | Lothar Bisky | The left. | 2 | 282 | 235 | 46 | 45.9% | No |
| Vice President | Lothar Bisky | The left. | 3 | 248 | 258 | 31 | 40.4% | No |
| Ballot regarding Lothar Bisky on November 8, 2005 | ||||||||
| Vice President | Lothar Bisky | The left. | 4th | 249 | 310 | 36 | 40.6% | No |
| Ballot regarding Petra Pau on April 7, 2006 | ||||||||
| Vice President | Petra Pau (* 1963 ) | The left. | 1/5 1 | 385 | 138 | 58 | 62.7% | Yes |
1 : First ballot in relation to Petra Pau, fifth ballot in relation to a candidate from the left parliamentary group
Further follow-up
After the events, the Committee for Electoral Examination Immunity and Rules of Procedure dealt with the events and, in Bundestag printed matter 16/2200, proposed a resolution to amend the Rules of Procedure, which made it clear that in a third ballot with only one applicant, if he was elected receives the relative majority of the votes cast, i.e. more yes than no votes, disregarding abstentions. Should another ballot take place with the same candidate, this is only possible after prior agreement in the council of elders. It is also stipulated that the process must be re-entered if a new candidate is proposed after three or more unsuccessful ballots, so that he too must first measure himself against the hurdle of an absolute majority. Essentially, this is the procedure that was practiced with Lothar Bisky. In its 51st session on September 21, 2006, the Bundestag unanimously decided to follow the recommended resolution and to change the rules of procedure accordingly.
swell
- ^ German Bundestag: Stenographic Service: Stenographic Report 1 session. (PDF; 1.1 MB) Bundesanzeiger Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, pp. 14, 19 , accessed on October 23, 2012 (German).
- ^ German Bundestag: Stenographic Service: Stenographic Report 2 Session. (PDF; 486 kB) Bundesanzeiger Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, pp. 3–4 , accessed on October 23, 2012 (German).
- ^ German Bundestag: Stenographic Service: Stenographic Report 33 session. (PDF; 1.3 MB) Bundesanzeiger Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, accessed on October 23, 2012 (German).
- ^ German Bundestag: Committee on Election Examination, Immunity and Rules of Procedure: Drucksache 16/2200. (PDF; 85 kB) Resolution recommendation and report of the Committee for Election Review, Immunity and Rules of Procedure (1st Committee) Change of the Rules of Procedure of the German Bundestag here: § 2 - Election of the President and the Deputy. Bundesanzeiger Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, accessed on October 23, 2012 (German).
- ^ German Bundestag: Stenographic Service: Stenographic Report 51 session. (PDF; 2.1 MB) Bundesanzeiger Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, p. 55 , accessed on October 23, 2012 (German).