Politicians will 'take children seriously' only if minors can oust them
Posted: November 6, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
Children will be allowed to vote in Germany if some leading members of the country's parliament have their way.
The proposal, seen as a counter-balance to an aging population resistant to welfare cuts, would give parents one proxy vote per child, according to Reuters.
But at least one proponent – Michael Kruse, deputy head of the German Children's Charity – thinks children should do the voting themselves in order to avoid conflict in families.
Reuters said 47 MPs support a cross-party motion calling for the right to vote from birth.
'A fifth of the population is excluded from elections,' said Klaus Haupt of the Free Democrats party, a leader of 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," he said, according to Reuters. "Now they can't imagine that everybody should vote from birth."
The Social Democrat parliamentary Speaker Wolfgang Thierse and his deputy, Green party member Antje Vollmer, support the measure, along with former Christian Democrat president Roman Herzog and Family Minister Renate Schmidt.
"Politicians will only take children seriously if they know they could be voted out by them," Haupt said, according to the news service.
Supporters of the measure are concerned about trends showing that by 2006, the next general election, 60 percent of German voters will be over 50 and by 2030, more than a third of the population will be over 60.
That spells trouble for a federal budget already threatened by spiraling pension, health and other welfare costs.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's attempts at welfare reform have met stiff resistance from lobby groups threatening to retaliate at the polls in 2006.
Reuters said eight minors have filed a constitutional challenge to Germany's exclusion of children from voting.
"How can any reforms be pushed through against pensioners? Children are second-class citizens," said Kurt-Peter Merk, a lawyer representing the minors, according to Reuters.
"We only worry about preserving the high quality of life of our pensioners
while many children suffer poverty," he
said.
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