A dispute over a few thousand votes has become one of the most closely watched political fights in Germany. Sahra Wagenknecht’s new party, BSW, which missed entering parliament by just 9,529 votes—the tightest margin in the country’s postwar history—is edging closer to a full recount that could upend the Bundestag’s balance of power.
Public pressure is mounting. A recent INSA poll shows 36% of Germans support a recount, while 30% oppose one. Backing is particularly strong among BSW voters (77%) and supporters of the right-wing AfD (60%), reflecting wider frustration with the political establishment and growing doubts about whether the February election was counted correctly.
The party’s case has gained traction after earlier checks uncovered 4,277 additional votes for BSW, narrowing the gap to just 0.019 percentage points. Wagenknecht and her designated successor, former MP Fabio De Masi, argue that thousands more votes may have been misattributed to other small parties or incorrectly marked invalid. They also say that new parties placed low on long ballot papers face a higher risk of counting mistakes—an issue they argue has also affected groups like the Pirate Party and the AfD in previous elections.
Germany’s election review committee has been examining the challenge for months and is now preparing a draft recommendation, with another closed-door meeting expected in December. Legal experts warn that the Bundestag is poorly equipped for such forensic election audits, describing the process as slow, understaffed, and structurally unsuited to handling more than a thousand election objections filed this year.
If the committee rejects BSW’s objection, the party intends to take the case to Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court. That appeal could stretch well into the current legislative term—raising the possibility of a dramatic mid-term shift in power if BSW ultimately crosses the 5% threshold. Such an outcome would likely strip the governing parties of their majority and force a new political configuration in Berlin.
BSW is increasingly confident. In a recent social-media post promoting De Masi’s interview with journalist Julian Reichelt, the party claimed that a full recount could uncover as many as 30,000 additional votes—far more than needed to enter parliament. “Every vote must count,” the post declared. “Recount—NOW!”
