Posted on 11/05/2003 3:07:35 PM PST by Tac12
Germany considers giving kids the vote
MPs want voting right for children to counter-balance a fast ageing electorate that is resisting cuts to welfare benefits
BERLIN - The one-man-one-vote system could be modified in Germany to give parents an additional vote for their children if some leading German MPs have their way.
The proposal to give parents a proxy vote for their children to counter the rising power of the elderly lobby is similar to an idea mooted by Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew in the early 1990s, but which was never taken up.
Concerned that politicians would be increasingly beholden to the demands of the rapidly swelling ranks of the retired, some Germans have taken the idea of universal suffrage to its logical conclusion.
They want children to have the right to vote to counter-balance the fast ageing electorate that is resisting cuts to generous benefits.
Forty-seven MPs are supporting a cross-party motion that calls for the right to vote from birth.
The motion asks the government to amend the Constitution so that parents get a proxy vote for each child under 18.
'A fifth of the population is excluded from elections,' said Mr Klaus Haupt, a 60-year-old grandfather of two from the opposition Free Democrats, who is driving the initiative.
'Two hundred years ago nobody could imagine that every male citizen would be able to vote and 100 years ago people couldn't imagine that every woman should vote. Now they can't imagine that everybody should vote from birth.'
The initiative has won influential supporters, including Social Democrat parliamentary Speaker Wolfgang Thierse, his Greens deputy Antje Vollmer, former Christian Democrat president Roman Herzog and Family Minister Renate Schmidt.
Mr Michael Kruse, deputy head of the German Children's Charity, supports the initiative but wants youngsters to vote themselves, saying a proxy vote is likely to provoke conflict in families.
'Politicians will only take children seriously if they know they could be voted out by them,' he said.
The Federal Statistics Office estimates that by 2030, more than a third of the population will be over 60, up from about a quarter now.
By the next general election in 2006, political analysts predict 60 per cent of voters will be over 50.
As post-war baby boomers retire en masse in the coming decade, pension, health and other welfare costs are set to spiral further out of control.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has staked his political future on reforming the munificent German welfare state, proposing cuts to health and unemployment benefits. But the measures face tough resistance and his Social Democrats have slumped in polls.
Although Mr Schroeder shied away from proposals to raise the pension age to 67 from 65, he announced a pensions freeze for next year, prompting organisations representing the retired to threaten to punish his centre-left government in 2006.
A poll by NFO-Infratest for Der Spiegel magazine showed 79 per cent thought the decision would have a great or very great influence on the voting preferences of the 20 million retired.
'How can any reforms be pushed through against pensioners? Children are second-class citizens,' said Mr Kurt-Peter Merk, a lawyer who is representing eight minors in a constitutional challenge to the exclusion of children from the vote.
'We only worry about preserving the high quality of life of our pensioners while many children suffer poverty,' he said. --
Yeah, it's crazy.
The southern states wanted to count the slaves as population for representation. The northern states did'nt want the slaves to count if they had no rights as citizens. They thought this would give the South an unfair advantage in votes taken in the House of Representatives. Finally the two sides reached a compromise. The slaves would count as 3/5 of a person for representation to the House of Representatives
Absolutely!
Oh, I had plenty of experiences in Germany that I am sure you would tell me are unusual...
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