Election year 2026 | Should you choose tactically?

Artificially kept alive for years through "tactical voting", today finally beyond the public interest: the FDP Photo: dpa/Hendrik Schmidt Tactical voting, as the schoolmasters of democracy explain to us, has once again ensured that the election results - for example in Saxony-Anhalt - were even more miserable than they should have been anyway given the current social situation. “Tactical voting,” some say proudly and act as if they had found a secret recipe that would make everything okay. Just as if democracy knew this: good and bad. “Tactical voting,” the others say in an indignant voice, acting as if someone had called for a coup.

These are two manifestations of just one misunderstanding, which is based on the erroneous assumption that the inclined voter only has to listen to himself, and when the person is completely quiet, deep down he hears someone reading out a party's program. Now all you have to do is determine which party exactly and then you will cross in the right place.

But it's not like that. The core voter base is actually an undemocratic principle that seeks to put one's allegiance above one's own head. And if you look closely, you can see that almost every voting decision is made for tactical reasons. Do you just want to prevent a certain government? Do you want to strengthen the potential junior partner in a coalition? Enable a powerful opposition? To wipe out all the parties represented in parliament? Know how to negotiate a poorly represented topic? Or maybe reward the list with the most female candidates with your own vote?

These are all signs of the tactics that parliamentary democracy naturally produces. They are no more or less honorable than the “pure” decision of conscience after watching the last TV duel or casting a vote after reading all the election programs. Some people advocate tactical voting and believe that everyone else is without a plan. The others condemn it and consider everything that does not correspond to their own interests to be an evil tactic. Is this already post-democracy – or just window dressing?

Hardly anyone will claim that the Sword of Damocles' five percent hurdle would leave them completely unimpressed in the election. Be it because you don’t want to “lose” your voice. Be it because you feel called upon to support – especially now. However, it is not such tactical electoral considerations that need to be castigated, but rather the quorum itself, which seems to have been somewhat outdated.

Anyone who wants to get involved in the strategy game of representative democracy should not complain if the other players interpret the rules according to their own ideas. Democracies can disappear – if the rule of law, separation of powers or fundamental rights are abolished. But they will not perish because the electorate deprives itself of the right to decide how to award (or not award) votes according to its own criteria. Erik Zielke

If elections changed anything, they would be banned, say the anarchists. It's also true that there are no free elections in dictatorships. Bourgeois democracy is more generous: whatever you like is allowed. Often it just has no influence and is seen as a quirk or hobby. It is always said that together we are strong, but it is a long way over the five percent hurdle. Unfortunately, you can no longer recognize your own voice in the crowd.

In the small party, on the other hand, every voice is noticeable. I still remember how, as a young salon Bolshevik, I voted for the Maoists. At school, a left-wing teacher convinced a few of my friends and me of this and impressed upon us: “The only thing that matters is the second vote. You can vote invalidly with the first vote and cross out half of the ballot paper. The checked second vote still counts!”

In fact, I read in the newspaper that in my village there had only been one vote for the Maoists in the federal elections - it was mine. It was exactly the same when I spontaneously voted for the Trotskyists in the European elections in mid-1989 because I had recently seen on television how Imre Nagy was officially buried in Budapest, 31 years after the Stalinists had executed him and thrown him into a mass grave. When the PDS came into power in 1990, it received three votes in the village: from a drinking friend of my brother, from my mother, whom I had convinced in lengthy discussions, and from me.

But in the commodity-barter society in which everyone has to pay for everything, such votes for parties below five percent are described as “wasted” by parties above five percent. You should only choose those who are successful. An increase is the request to "lend" one's vote in order to lift a party that is supposedly important above five percent. Some call this “tactical voting.” For decades, one of the most superfluous parties of all, the FDP, was brought into parliament, first by the SPD, then by the CDU. Since they have become too weak for this, the FDP has been lost. Now the SPD in Saxony-Anhalt had to be saved in parliament together with the Greens in order to prevent the AfD from gaining an absolute majority.

It worked, but such calls are unsatisfactory. People tell you that politics is a serious matter. Even if a lot of things seem ridiculous. “And the politicians, they are all stupid,” sang Helge Schneider, they should all go home and wash themselves first “before they decide anything.” And that's supposed to be tactical?

Many people choose certain people and not programs because no one reads them. I also voted for Joschka Fischer when he was the first environment minister in Hesse, or Klaus Wowereit in Berlin, just because I found him likeable. I really gave them my voice. Of course they didn't notice, but I did. Because if you don't mean it seriously or "tactically", you can leave it alone. “If you don’t feel it, you won’t hunt it.” This is not anarchist, but Goethe.

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