FDP lawyers contest Lower Saxony election

Seven weeks after the state elections in Lower Saxony, there are doubts about their legality. The FDP legal experts Marco Genthe and Alexander Grafe contest the October 9 election result. A brief on this was received by the Lower Saxony state parliament president Hanna Naber on Friday and is available to WELT AM SONNTAG. The integrity of the entire election result has been severely compromised, write the group's former legal policy spokesman and the officer for legal and constitutional issues.

They refer to allegations made by the judge and former AfD member of parliament Christopher Emden after he left the party. In a ZDF interview in early October, he reported on a "war chest" that the current deputy head of the AfD regional association, Ansgar Schledde, managed. In return for payments into this fund, party members were assured a promising place on the state electoral list. In return, according to Emden, Schledde promised sufficient votes when the list was drawn up. For 4,000 euros, Schledde also wanted to help Emden get a seat in the state parliament. According to Emden's statement, the Osnabrück public prosecutor's office had started investigations into the initial suspicion of infidelity. Schledde denies the allegations.

The Oldenburg constitutional lawyer Volker Boehme-Neßler considers a repeat election to be justified. "The question of selling list places does not only affect the AfD and its state list. It is also about the entire composition of the state parliament and thus ultimately the validity of the state elections.” All 18 AfD MPs, including Schledde, were drawn into the state parliament via the state list.

If this were invalid and the MPs would lose their mandates, the composition of the state parliament would change profoundly. In addition, the required minimum number of MPs of 135 would then be undershot.

The Bonn constitutional lawyer Heiko Sauer refers to a comparable case in Hamburg. There, in 1993, the state elections had to be repeated because the party leadership of the CDU Hamburg had their list proposal voted on as a block. Alternative candidates had practically no chance. The constitutional court had complained that this was undemocratic. Had voters known, they would have voted differently. Sauer does not consider this justification to be convincing, as it assumes a “hypothetical causal course”. He warns against setting a trend after Berlin, "that one actively searches for errors in order to completely overturn a sometimes faulty election".

The parties in the state parliament show little interest in a new election. Just three weeks ago, the SPD and the Greens agreed on a governing coalition. In the opposition, the Union is currently being reorganized in terms of personnel. When WELT AM SONNTAG asked whether the parties also had doubts about the integrity of the election results, it was generally said that the problem only affected the AfD, not the entire election. In addition, the public prosecutor's office stopped investigating against Schledde last weekend.

Boehme-Neßler considers this irrelevant: "For the question of a repetition of the election, criminal liability is irrelevant." It is also striking that the challenge is submitted by Genthe and Grafe as individuals. In the October election, the FDP missed out on entering the Lower Saxony state parliament with 4.7 percent. The worry is probably too great now that they will appear as bad losers. Genthe and Grafe are sticking to the action: "The sale of list places is the decay of a democracy from within. We cannot let it stand like that.” Konstantin Kuhle, General Secretary of the Lower Saxony FDP, also thinks: “The integrity of democratic elections must be beyond any doubt,” he told WELT AM SONNTAG.

The challenge by the FDP lawyers goes to the election examination committee, which can hear the former AfD member of the Emden state parliament and view the investigation files of the public prosecutor's office. The state parliament then decides whether the election must be repeated. Boehme-Neßler finds this procedure “not entirely unproblematic”: “After all, the elected MPs make their own decisions. One could also say: You are biased.” A lawsuit against the state parliament decision is possible before the state court.