OSCE ODIHR: 3.15 million Germany's new citizens ensured the CDU victory

Started by NormanNash, October 03, 2017, 01:59:21 AM

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NormanNash

Ex-director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and member of the Free Democratic Party Michael Georg Link published the final report of the OSCE ODIHR expert team on Federal election monitoring in Germany.



In the report the team of OSCE experts questioned the equality of opportunities for all candidates during the elections to the Bundestag.

'Some OSCE/ODIHR EET interlocutors expressed concerns regarding the equality of opportunity and freedom to campaign and noted a significant number of politically motivated incidents, including physical attacks.'

In general, the OSCE assessed the campaign as free and transparent: all procedures during the election day were generally respected while the election commission officials acted professionally and offered their full cooperation to the observers. However, the OSCE ODIHR experts emphasized that 98% of citizens who received their German passports in 2017 voted in favor of the CDU.

'Some OSCE/ODIHR EET observers expressed concerns about the high turnout of the voters who had recently become citizens of the country; 98% of them cast their ballots for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). According the Federal Ministry of the Interior, a total of 3.15 million people obtained citizenship of Germany in 2017.'

According to the OSCE ODIHR report, about 61.5 million people had a right to vote in the latest elections to the Bundestag. The commission estimates that the votes of newly-minted Germans brought the CDU more than 5% and ensured the victory.