The AfD will make up more than a third of MPs in the upcoming state parliament. This gives it a blocking minority. It is hardly possible to make policy with this. This mechanism protects something that is viewed critically by many right-wing populists. By Oliver Noffke
Can an opposition party influence or even block the work of the Brandenburg state government? According to the provisional final result, the AfD will hold 30 of a total of 88 seats in the next state parliament. If this is confirmed, it would hold more than a third of the votes in parliament – and thus the so-called blocking minority.
In the current political debate, the impression sometimes arises that this could mean protecting the views or goals of opposition parties. After all, the word sounds as if it describes a minority that cannot be ignored. However, the minorities in question are purely mathematical. It is not about political views.
Blocking minorities in parliaments are not intended to protect parties, but the foundation of the state and democracy: the constitution. “This was deliberately built in because there are votes with different legal implications,” explains Beate Harms-Ziegler. She was a judge at the State Constitutional Court in Potsdam from 1993 to 2009, is a professor and runs a law firm in Berlin. “That’s why there is the highest quorum for constitutional amendments.”