Shortly before the state elections in Bavaria and Hesse, small parties need one thing above all: more attention. Now the animal protection party is failing in court with a lawsuit over this currency.
When the first projections are shown on election evening, the party’s supporters stand transfixed in front of the screen. There is cheer or disappointment when the percentage figures are shown – at least among the larger parties. All others are grouped under the “Other” category.
Broadcasters such as ZDF or ARD usually only present the projections and election results when a party reaches at least three percent. The animal protection party has now sued against this in all administrative courts – and lost in most cases.
Before the upcoming state elections in Bavaria and Hesse, the party for “People, Environment, Animal Welfare” called on the broadcasters to also show the results of small parties. The animal welfare party said the threshold should be lowered from three to one percent. She referred to equal opportunities in the political opinion-forming process. “The extra-parliamentary parties are already disappearing from sight and consciousness on the evening of the election,” complained the animal protection party’s lawyer, Korbinian Geiger, to the “FAZ”. “This leads to them no longer being seen as serious options.”
Most broadcasters resisted this. In the last state elections in 2018, the smallest party achieved 1.0 percent in Hesse and 0.3 percent in Bavaria.
Animal protection party fails in court in Bavaria
In Mainz, the administrative court has now decided in favor of ZDF. The reporting is based on a “plausible overall editorial concept” that takes into account the Animal Protection Party’s principle of equal opportunities. The reason for the three percent threshold is that determining a forecast value in the one percent range using standard methods is not reliable. This is only possible from an expected result of three percent. The parties’ official final result will be published on the ZDF news portal. The court found this to be appropriate.
The Munich administrative court had already rejected the urgent application against Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) on Friday. The animal protection party also lost to Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) with the same issue at the Hamburg Administrative Court; according to the court, a complaint against it is still pending before the Higher Administrative Court.
However, the animal protection party was able to achieve partial success in Frankfurt and Berlin. The Frankfurt administrative court obliged Hessischer Rundfunk (HR) to report the results if the party received at least one percent of the votes according to the preliminary official final result. However, due to the susceptibility to errors, this does not yet apply to the projections that will be shown at 6 p.m.
The Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court came to a similar conclusion in May. The state broadcasting authority of the states of Berlin and Brandenburg (rbb) was not allowed to combine the result of the animal protection party in the last state election with the other small parties under “others” because the party was well ahead of the others with 2.6 percent.
Sources: , , , “”, with information from the AFP news agency
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
