Is German Politics Dominated by Cartel Parties?

The term ‘cartel parties’ has become a dirty word in German politics—associated with the ‘far right’ and the AfD, despite dating back much further. With the cordon sanitaire (or firewall, as it’s known in Germany) leading established parties to huddle together and exclude the AfD from any meaningful parliamentary power, the idea that political parties increasingly function like cartels—employing state resources to limit competition—has found new life.

Yet in a recent political twist, the term has also been embraced by supporters of the left-populist BSW, particularly regarding established parties’ attempts to keep the BSW out of parliament and thereby secure the survival of the current government coalition.

The story of this alleged plot against the BSW has its basis in fact. The party, founded only in January 2024, pledged to shake up Germany’s political landscape. Germany is in a bad state, its founding programme declared, with established parties having ignored the wishes of the majority for years.

In its first months, the party achieved astonishing successes. In June 2024, just four months after its foundation, it won 6.1% in the EU elections. In local elections in Thuringia and Saxony, it even achieved double-digit results the same year, practically from a standing start.

As with the right-populist AfD, the BSW’s rise was met with trepidation by mainstream parties. In June, a broad coalition of CDU, Green Party, and Liberal members demanded that the AfD be monitored by Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution (just as the AfD is), arguing that the party posed a threat to democracy.

But it’s the established parties’ refusal to accept a recount of this year’s general election votes that is the clearest proof of cartel-like behaviour.

The recount controversy

Despite its earlier stunning successes, the BSW failed to secure the 5% threshold in this year’s general election. Scoring ‘only’ 4.97%—lacking just 9,500 votes, according to some estimates (out of a total of nearly 60 million eligible voters)—it was forced into extra-parliamentary opposition, with all the disadvantages this entails: inability to shape policy, tendency to be ignored by mainstream press, loss of some state funding.

What proved disastrous for the BSW (which has since lost support and been plagued by infighting) proved fortunate for Chancellor Merz and his governing CDU. The reason? The parliamentary majority. Only because the BSW failed to win seats could the CDU form a coalition with the SPD alone. If the BSW entered parliament, even with just a few MPs, the current coalition would lose its already fragile majority. 

Since the election, the party has demanded a recount. It argues—truthfully—that never before has a party missed parliamentary entry by such a slim margin. It also claims, not without credibility, that February’s snap election put the BSW at a disadvantage. Several mishaps occurred during counting at numerous polling stations, with some BSW votes reportedly counted for a similarly named but smaller “BfD” party.

Yet parliament, which by law is responsible for ordering recounts, has dragged its feet. The reason is clear: its almost existential interest in keeping the left-populists out (“9,500 more votes and the chaos would be perfect,” writes the pro-establishment Zeit newspaper). 

The BSW’s main problem, of course, is that it hasn’t built on its initial success (and seemingly hasn’t convinced quite enough voters, perhaps because of its fixation with ‘peace talks with Putin’?). But the way the demands for a recount of votes have been dismissed surely provides ample proof that established parties will risk voter cynicism rather than lose power.

Is it any wonder that parliament’s refusal to recount votes has fostered bitterness—far beyond BSW supporters?

A legitimacy problem

The threat to parliamentary democracy’s image has troubled even some mainstream commentators. “This means that MPs are, as it were, judges in their own cause and can use the government majority to reject precisely those election appeals that could jeopardise their power,” writes Daniel Deckers in the FAZ. “It is obvious that this procedure raises problems of legitimacy.” The absence of legal deadlines for election review decisions makes it even easier for government members to ignore the BSW’s demands.

Of course, the 5% threshold is nothing new. The BSW isn’t the only party to fail it—the Liberals, too, missed the mark with 4.33%. Nor is there any guarantee a recount would catapult the BSW above 5%. But it’s a technocratic tool that has always—since post-war Germany’s founding—served to keep challengers at bay (originally intended to suppress neo-Nazi parties).

Though often criticised (in the 1970s, left-wing and Green movements campaigned against the threshold), its impact was only fully felt when mainstream parties failed to secure broad majorities—leading to ever more votes going unrepresented. The most notorious example was the 2013 election, which Merkel’s CDU won, but at which over 15% of votes were ‘lost’ to parties failing the threshold. Though the rise of the Green Party in the 1980s and the AfD in recent years (founded in 2013) shows that when voter discontent reaches a certain level, challengers can overcome even high barriers.

The cartel label sticks

In an odd historical irony, the left-liberal Spiegel some years ago included “cartel parties” in its glossary of “right-wing words and language”—despite the term dating back to the late 19th century, referring to the Bismarckian era when three parties engaged in tactical voting and pre-election agreements to counter the rising Social Democrats. The motive for this framing is well understood: discredit and intimidate anyone criticising the establishment.

The term may not sit well with many in the establishment, but is there any better expression to describe the mechanisms maintaining the political power of parties that have been losing votes for years? Huddled behind a firewall and protected by the 5% threshold, the SPD—which lost nearly 10% of its vote share and currently commands a mere 14% in polls—still dominates politics, with its functionaries making far-reaching decisions on energy, migration, and pensions.

News that parliament might finally consult about a vote in the next weeks has only just trickled through and remains unconfirmed at the time of writing (of course, as our parliamentarians are prone to do these days: behind closed doors, in a largely secretive committee). But as long as the established parties continue down the path of anti-populism (including calls for bans and exclusion), the term ‘cartel parties’ will stick—and rightly so.