Election to the House of Representatives: Greens in Berlin in front, SPD just behind

The Greens emerge from the election to the Berlin House of Representatives as the strongest force. The party put out loud ARD– Forecast increases significantly and ends up in front of the SPD, which is stagnating. The CDU achieved a historically poor result. Left and AfD lose, the FDP is slightly in the plus.

In the election to the Berlin House of Representatives, the Greens are clearly showing signs of success. After ARD– The party’s forecast increases significantly. The result could mean that for the first time a Green politician takes over the position of governing mayor of the city.

Accordingly, the Greens recorded a significant gain and jumped from 15.2 percent in the last election in 2016 to 23.5 percent – an increase of around eight percentage points. This puts them two percentage points ahead of the SPD, which according to the forecast comes to 21.5 percent. The Social Democrats are stagnating – in 2016 they had achieved 21.6 percent.

The left, previously part of the red-red-green state coalition, is losing slightly, however, and ends up with 14.5 percent – after 15.6 percent five years ago.

CDU historically bad

The CDU also suffered losses – it slipped to 15 percent. If it stays that way, it would be the Christian Democrats’ worst election result in Berlin to date. In 2016 it had achieved 17.6 percent.

The AfD has to register a real crash. It ends up at just seven percent – that’s around half of the 2016 result (14.2 percent).

The FDP, on the other hand, emerged slightly stronger from the election – according to the forecast, it comes to 7.5 percent (2016: 6.7 percent).

Who can form a coalition with whom?

Green top candidate Bettina Jarrasch can therefore hope to head a new coalition and become the successor of the previous Governing Mayor Michael Müller (SPD), who did not run again to switch to federal politics.

A green-red alliance would have 66 of 130 seats in the House of Representatives – a majority of just one seat. A new edition of the previous coalition of the Greens with the SPD and the Left – under new leadership – would have a comfortable majority of 87 seats. Theoretically, a green-red-black alliance would also be conceivable – it would have 88 votes. A coalition of the Greens, SPD and FDP, on the other hand, would have 77 seats. However, because of the programmatic differences, both combinations are not very likely.

In addition to the Bundestag and the House of Representatives, the district assemblies were also newly elected in Berlin. In addition, the referendum “Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co.” was voted on. The turnout was high and accompanied by logistical challenges. Long queues formed in front of numerous polling stations. Eligible voters sometimes had to queue for more than an hour in front of the booths. In some polling stations, the voting slips for the districts were also swapped. The electronic locking systems in two polling stations went on strike, so that the voters could only get to the booths with the help of the fire brigade.