Joanna wrote (regarding abolition of proportional representation in Germany):
> Can this be done by fiat? Or, will it require a
popular > vote?
According to the opinion piece that ran in the Handelsblatt ("Klare Verhältnisse" by Max Steinbeis, which is now no longer online, presumably articles revert to "for pay" status within a day), it has already been established by court rulings that proportional representation is *not* guaranteed by the constitution.
Also according to the same piece, an attempt to change the electoral laws could be done through the Bundestag. The question would be whether the major minor parties such as the Greens, Die Linke, and FDP (Liberal Democrats) would vote along for such a thing, given it would mean their practical self-abolition on the national stage.
Frankly, I think this is mere bluff. The CDU has just lost its absolute majority in Hamburg, and it looks like they will have to enter a coalition government with the Greens (yes, you read that correctly) in order to maintain power.
What the CDU recognizes is that between votes for the SPD and votes for Die Linke, there is a clear majority of the voting population left of the CDU. That is what explains all their redbaiting attempts to scare the SPD away from taking Die Linke seriously as a coalition partner. What amazes me is that the useless press swallows this line, and runs stories about alleged credibility gaps on the part of the SPD for even daring to consider cooperation with Die Linke.
If you read the major media (Spiegel, Tagesschau, Zeit) then everyone talks as if the CDU is in ascendancy on the national level. In reality, all it would take is an SPD leadership principled and courageous enough openly consider a coalition government at the national level, and that would rob the CDU of all hopes of constituting the next national government.
I have no illusions in Die Linke, given their rotten neo-liberal record in Berlin, but I enjoy the provocative role they're playing in the West German Länder. And frankly, rather than a national coalition government, I hope further electoral success on their part manages to reduce the SPD to insignificance, or at least to split it.
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