At first, all you hear at the Berlin CDU election party is cheers and applause. Secretary General Stefan Evers clenches both hands into a winning fist, hugs, a young woman bursts into tears in the packed ballroom of the House of Representatives. “Madness!”, one hears, “Incredible!”, “Boom, mega!”. One says: “Finally, finally we’ve won.”
According to the latest polls, a victory for the CDU in the repeat elections was to be expected. Now the small sensation is perfect: The CDU of top candidate Kai Wegner is ahead for the first time in more than twenty years. “A historic evening for the Berlin CDU and the city of Berlin,” says General Secretary Stefan Evers. In the last election in September 2021, the Christian Democrats were still behind the SPD and Greens with 18 percent. It now looks as if the CDU is leading by almost ten percentage points. The last time there was a CDU mayor in the capital was Eberhard Diepgen.
Despite the result, it is anything but clear whether Wegner will be the next to move into the Rotes Rathaus. But one thing is certain shortly after 6 p.m.: He intends to do it. The top candidate triumphs on stage: “Overwhelming. Madness. I’m a little lost for words.” He quickly finds his language again: “Berlin has chosen the change.” He found the evening’s message: “We want to lead a successful Berlin coalition,” he says, and the party cheers.
Wegner wants to be an advocate for motorists and get Berlin going again
During the election campaign, the Berlin CDU tried to get a new (turquoise) coat of paint as a modern city party. So far, she has done particularly well in the bourgeois western outskirts of Berlin. Wegner himself comes from Spandau, one of the westernmost districts. The 50-year-old likes to emphasize that the only native Berliner is among the promising top candidates. Wegner joined the Junge Union at the age of 17, the insurance salesman later moved into the House of Representatives and the Bundestag, and has been state chairman of the Berlin CDU since 2019.
“Berlin is celebrating”, at least the conservative part of the city’s population: ecstasy among CDU supporters on election night.
(Photo: Michele Tantussi/Reuters)
Wegner promised to change what upsets many in Berlin: the construction sites in transport policy, the housing shortage, the feeling of some that criminals will not be cracked down on, the administration in need of reform. Although he is regarded as a power politician with a rather flexible profile, in the election campaign he was able to mobilize people primarily with the issues of traffic and security. He made a name for himself as a defender of motorists, and when he asked the first names of the German suspects after the New Year’s Eve riots, he received a lot of criticism from the left, but the CDU’s poll numbers rose. With him as governing mayor, he promises, Berlin will “finally function.”
And yet: Even as the clear winner of the election, Wegner could end up empty-handed. At first it seemed possible that incumbent Franziska Giffey (SPD) or Bettina Jarasch (Greens) would get enough seats for a majority in alliance with the left.
Last week, Berlin’s CDU general secretary Evers described a coalition without the participation of the election winner as “election theft” on Twitter. The last CDU mayor to date, Eberhard Diepgen, had proposed toleration of the SPD with Giffey as mayor if his party won the election. Wegner rejects that so far.