No Party Affiliation - Germany

Germany

Joachim Gauck, incumbent President of Germany since 2012 and first Federal President without party affiliation, currently is the most prominent Independent politician. In the German presidential election of 2010 he was the candidate of Social Democrats and Greens, in 2012 the candidate of all major parties except The Left. His presidency—though his powers are limited—constitutes an exception, as Independent politicians had rarely held high offices in German history, at least not since World War II. It nevertheless happened before that a presidential candidate without any chances to be elected by the Federal Convention was no party member, for example, when in 1984 the Greens came up with the writer Luise Rinser

In the Bundestag parliament nearly all deputies belong to a political party. The voting system of personalized proportional representation (since 1949) allows any individual holding passive right to vote to stand for a direct mandate in the electoral districts—half of the seats in parliament are distributed by districts according to a plurality voting system. Such a candidate has to present two hundred signatures in favor of his candidacy, the same as a candidate of a party that had no parliamentary presentation earlier. The first Bundestag election in 1949 saw three independents get elected; since then, no party-independent candidate has won a seat. On state level, the situation is more or less the same: only party members have a real chance to be elected to a Landtag legislature, and state ministers without party membership are even rare as on the federal level. However, in local elections it may occur that an independent politician is elected deputy to districts', cities' and municipalities' assemblies, as well as member of a city council or even mayor, especially in Northern Germany. In recent years, independents have formed Free Voters associations to enter Landtag parliaments, so far only successful in Bavaria.

An independent MP, who also is not a member of a voters' association, holds the status of a non-inscrit (German: fraktionsloser Abgeordneter) not affiliated with any parliamentary group. A representative who leaves his party (and his parliamentary group) and does not join another becomes an independent and non-inscrit. In 1989 the Bundestag MP Thomas Wüppesahl, who had left the Green Party in 1987 and was excluded from the Green parliamentary group the next year, as a non-inscrit obtained more rights, for example more talking time and representation in a subcommittee, when the Federal Constitutional Court decided partially in his favor.

After the German unification of 1871, the first Reich Chancellors (heads of government) de jure served as executive officers of the German Imperial states as non-partisans, usually recruited from the traditional burocratic, aristocratic and or military elites. In the fierce political conflicts during the Weimar period after World War I, several chancellors and Reich Ministers also had no party affiliaton, these chancellors were Wilhelm Cuno (1922-1923), Hans Luther (1925-1926), the former Centre politician Franz von Papen (1932), and Kurt von Schleicher (1932-1933). The last two cabinets appointed by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, a non-partisan (though strong Conservative) himself, were regarded as apolitical cabinets of experts with regard to the rise of the Nazi Party; many of the ministers were no party members.

Since World War II, only two ministers of (West) German cabinets were no party members, though on the ticket of the major party in the coalition, the Social Democrats: Education Minister Hans Leussink (1969-1972), and Minister of Economy Werner Müller (1998-2002). Minister of Justice Klaus Kinkel only shortly after his appointment joined the Free Democrats in 1991. A special case is the former Federal Minister and Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, whose affiliation with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has not been conclusively established: Although he has served as Minister of Economics from 1949 to 1963 and Federal Chancellor from 1963 to 1966, and although he was even elected CDU party chairman in 1966, it seems that he has never signed a member form or paid contributions. Researches by Der Stern magazine have revealed a record at the CDU party archives created only in 1968, with the faked date of entry as early of March 1949.