One of the key questions surrounding the upcoming Bundestag elections is undoubtedly whether the FDP, the Left Party (Die Linke), and the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) will manage to surpass the 5% threshold. For all three parties, it is currently a close call.

However, it is also worth looking at the other smaller groups on the ballots, which can enrich political debate, and sometimes even achieve surprising success. This time round, the small parties had a particularly hard time getting organised in time and collecting the necessary signatures, due to the short preparation period as the election was called at quite short notice. Many of them failed at the federal or state level.

The federal election officer originally approved 41 parties for the election. This was already twelve fewer than in 2021. After the state lists were set up, only 29 parties remain. Last time there were 47. Compared to 2021, the ballots in individual federal states will be shorter by seven, eight, or – as in Bavaria – nine parties, on February 23. In Thuringia, there will only be a choice between 11 parties. The largest selection will be available to voters in Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia, with 18 options each.

Names such as the Family Party, which managed to win a mandate in the last European election, the far-right NPD, or the Grauen and Graue Panther are missing. The federal election officer denied 15 other fringe parties access for formal reasons: The Party for Motorsport, the Anarchistic Pogo Party of Germany, the Pensioners’ Party, the Identitarian Movement, and the Döner Party will not appear on the ballots.

Nine newcomers received approval at the federal level. Of them, five failed to make it onto the state lists. Cannabis enthusiast Vaclav Wenzel Cerveny, who wanted to run in Bavaria with his newly founded Cannabis Social Club, failed to collect the required 2,000 signatures. The shady entrepreneur Can Ansay, who became wealthy through questionable online businesses (selling sick notes without a medical examination), tried to run with his „Dr. Ansay Party“ in three federal states. Although he made headlines in the media, he failed to gather enough signatures.

The far-right „Freie Sachsen“, the Erdogan-affiliated „Democratic Alliance for Diversity and Renewal“, and the conspiracy theorists from the „New Middle“ were also unable to make use of their first-time nationwide approval. The right-wing conservative „Werteunion“, which has already established 14 state chapters, only managed to make it onto the ballot in North Rhine-Westphalia in its Bundestag debut. Only ten parties are running in all 16 states, including Volt, the BSW, and „Bündnis Deutschland“, which was founded in 2022.