Agency Report –
Karlruhe, Germany – Germany’s top court on Tuesday rejected a challenge to the results of February’s parliamentary elections.
The case was brought by the populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which won 4.981% of the vote – falling just short of the 5% required to secure seats in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament.
The party filed a constitutional challenge to the results, arguing that its right to equal opportunity was denied over the failure to carry out a recount, and the BSW’s placement on election ballots.
The Constitutional Court, based in the south-western city of Karlsruhe, ruled that the complaints were inadmissible.
“The applicant has not sufficiently substantiated the possibility of a violation of its right to equal opportunities,” it said in a statement.
A separate complaint by the BSW is under way in the parliamentary committee.
The party’s founder, Sahra Wagenknecht, said that if the complaint is rejected, she plans to appeal to the Constitutional Court again.
Just one year after emerging as a splinter group from The Left party, the BSW fell 9,529 votes short of reaching the 5% hurdle in February’s election.
In its challenge, it claimed that up to 32,000 votes for the party were either not counted, or were incorrectly assigned.
A successful challenge could have huge implications for German politics.
The new coalition government in Berlin – made up of Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats, the Bavaria-only Christian Social Union and the centre-left Social Democratic Party – would have lacked a majority in the Bundestag if the BSW had overcome the 5% hurdle.
By Jacqueline Melcher and Susanne Kupke-Flohr
