I’m following the fascinating German election, which takes place tomorrow, closely. One of the intriguing issues is how the role of the small parties, and the 5% threshold for a party to win any seats, will affect the ability to form a governing, majority coalition — including a coalition that is stable and more likely to be effective at addressing the major challenges Germany currently faces. The success or failure of these minor parties will have powerful effects on the kind of government Germany is able to form.

This is a snap election, taking place because the current three-party coalitional government had become so unpopular that the government collapsed.

Four parties are sure to get seats in the Budenstag (the parliament), with the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) projected to easily win a plurality of the seats. The other three are the AfD, currently projected to come in second, the Social Democrats, and the Greens. Three other parties are close to the 5% threshold required to win seats: Die Linke, BSW, and FDP (if a party wins at least three individual constituency or district elections it is also entitled to seats).

In one scenario, two or more of these minor parties fall below the threshold and fail to gain any seats. If that happens, the CDU is likely to be able to form a unity government of only two parties, in which it would govern with the smaller Social Democrats. The CDU has ruled out a coalition that would include the AfD. Forming a two-party governing coalition would be the easiest path to forming a government quickly and one that would be most likely to be stable.

But if the smaller parties manage to get over the 5% threshold and win a proportionate share of seats, that would mean fewer seats for the larger parties. In that scenario, the CDU would probably have to try to form once again a three-party governing coalition. The most likely party it would add to the Social Democrats would be the Greens. This would involving facing a range of policy conflicts between these three parties. It would probably take much longer for Germany to form a government and that government might be roiled by the kind of internal tensions and conflicts that destabilized the prior three-party coalitional government. That three-party coalition would also be more fragile than a two-party coalition between the CDU and the Social Democrats.

Thus, the success or failure of the smallest parties is going to have significant ramifications for the type of government Germany gets and its ability to take the steps required to address Germany’s major issues. Polling data shows that the single most important issue in the election for voters is “immigration and asylum.” 35% of voters consider it the most important issue, with the economy second at 16%.

I’ve been writing about the political fragmentation in Western democracies and this major election will reveal more about where European party politics stands these days.

Update: Now that the election is over, neither of the two smaller parties managed to get past the 5% threshold, though in the case of the BSW, the party received 4.97% of the vote and barely missed the threshold. That difference was the difference between getting 0 seats and getting around 35 seats. The two traditionally dominant parties, the CDU/CSU and the SPD now have the opportunity to form a governing coalition, albeit by a small margin. Note also their combined vote share was around 45%, so the two parties will likely have a governing majority without a popular vote majority (because the parties with less than 5% support received 0 seats).