In a recent interview, Karl-Josef Laumann, the Minister for Labour, Health, and Social Affairs in North Rhine-Westphalia, lamented the Bundestag’s lack of representation of the broader society. “When I was elected in 1990, we still had a broader spectrum of the population in parliament. There were established craftsmen who had a business at home, and many farmers from rural electoral districts” Laumann told Ippen-Media.
He noted that today, there are almost only academics in the Bundestag factions. “There used to be the saying: The Bundestag is sometimes fuller, sometimes emptier, but always fuller of teachers. Today, jurists are shaping the image.” It is already a problem, Laumann said, when certain milieus are no longer present in operational politics.
“A people’s party needs a broad basis and diverse perspectives. The people making politics there are all very well-educated and honest. But I believe that not only, but also in the people’s parties, a part of this diversity is missing” the minister, who is also a member of the CDU’s federal executive board, said.