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IOTL dates were handy for making a quick electorate response to the new circumstances. The first all-German election after the war in December 1990 was well within the usual constitutional schedule as the election before was in January 1987. And to avoid any complications, the electoral law was amended for that very election by the two divided Germanies two whole months before reunification (early 8/90), for having uniform rules across Germany when the election takes place. Hastily create 72 new constituencies in the East, the rest dealing with equality of treatment of whatsoever groups akin to parties etc.

Germany could do and even did what was needed for the most unexpected circumstances to happen. So there was never any need to speculate if the provisional East German members of the late 11th Bundestag were allowed to serve in the 12th as well if the election couldn't be held in the East because anything was to late. Though you could argue if it was legal to hold an all-German election when Germany was still divided on election day.


After all the mess, I have a rather boring question. WI e.g. reunification (no matter which decade) had been done at a time when the next general election would first have been held in more than one year from then?

Would the Germans really call for premature elections to resolve the unsatisfying provisory arrangement? If yes, how would they do that?

Would they amend the Basic Law to allow Bundestag for self-dissolution? That would have been a clean-cut solution, though a bit inconvenient.

A motion of confidence to deliberately lose it? That trick has been used two or three times IOTL, depending on how you judge the MoC of Wily Brandt 1972, and has been approved by the courts. But how might the courts decide if it was just done to appease the German people? Isn't "extraordinary circumstances" a buzzword you could use all the time and therefore vulnerable to abuse? Or would the courts just say, like at Kohl 1982 and Schröder 2005, that the courts cannot seriously judge the climate and stability of a goverment as that inconvience is part of the everyday govermental discretion?
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