German populist party BSW asks court to order election recount

The German upstart populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) party, which fell narrowly short of claiming seats in parliament in February's national election, has asked the German Constitutional Court to order a recount, reported dpa.

A BSW spokeswoman confirmed the legal filing on Tuesday.

Official preliminary results from Germany's February 23 election put the BSW at 4.972% of votes, barely under the 5% threshold that parties normally must clear to claim seats in the Bundestag, the lower house of German parliament.

Since then, individual local recounts in several places have revealed that some votes were apparently incorrectly allocated. However, those recounts have not resulted in any significant shifts in the results.

The official final result is to be announced by the Federal Election Committee as early as next Friday. Objections could then be raised and, if necessary, legal action could be taken.

It remains unclear when the Constitutional Court might hear the BSW request, or when a decision on whether to order a recount might be issued.

If the BSW were to end up in the new Bundestag, it could cause problems for a potential governing coalition between the conservatives and Social Democrats.

BSW politicians have repeatedly complained about alleged irregularities, and accused the German media of unfair coverage, in the weeks since the vote.

Party founder Sahra Wagenknecht alleged to the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper on Tuesday that "several thousand BSW votes" had apparently been incorrectly allocated to other parties or assessed as invalid.

She argued that a fair treatment of voters is only possible if "a nationwide recount is carried out before the official final result is determined."

Wagenknecht, who began her political career as a member of the former communist East Germany's ruling party and has long been one of the best-known figures on Germany's left-wing political fringe, founded the party just over a year ago.

She had previously been a leader in The Left, but split with the hard-left party over her anti-immigration views and increasingly right-wing stances on social issues such as gender.