Voting reform passes + AfD ahead of Greens + award-winning play 'cancelled'

Good morning,

• It seems crazy to me that changing the voting system doesn’t require a two thirds majority in the Bundestag. All that is needed to alter the voting rules is a simple majority, meaning that every new government could in theory pass a voting reform that would skew future elections in their favour. The ‘traffic light’ government on Friday passed a highly controversial reform to the voting system through the Bundestag despite furious opposition from both the left and the right. Everyone agrees that Germany needs to cut the number of MdBs sitting in the Bundestag, but the law will upset the balance between direct representation and party lists in favour of the latter. In the future, some constituencies might not even get a representative in the Bundestag if that politician’s party doesn’t win enough votes. The risk is that this will entrench a problem that has already given the Bundestag a reputation as a talking shop: many MdBs are only loyal to the party and therefore never …