Franziska Giffey has achieved something unique. She is the first woman to be elected to the office of Governing Mayor of Berlin. And the first East German too. She herself once spoke of “fate” in connection with the election. That might sound a bit pathetic, but from her point of view it is understandable. For Franziska Giffey personally, this career move has something of a salvation: The plagiarism in a doctoral thesis that suddenly ended the careers of other top politicians – Giffey cleverly moderated them away in his own case. In the city where Willy Brandt once proudly ruled, she got the historic worst election result for the SPD and still became mayor. An alliance of the SPD, the Greens and the Left is now ruling the capital for the second time. But how well fate really means with Franziska Giffey will only become apparent in the next few years.
Congratulations cake with spelling mistake
Looking at Berlin and indulging in malice has become a kind of national sport. But in fact, parts of Germany’s metropolis with its 3.7 million inhabitants can simply hardly be governed. This can be seen in the large projects such as the annoying topic of the BER airport, in which billions flowed and which still does not function smoothly even with minimal operation. It is also evident in everyday small and small things, for example when the Berlin months have to wait for a new identity card. And when the parliamentarians in the House of Representatives recently celebrated the end of the legislature, they did so with a cake that seriously said: “A beginning has been made!” From the confectioner to the deliverer, apparently no one had noticed the mistake.
But Berlin now has more than just an embarrassing spelling weakness; government is characterized by poor craftsmanship and a culture of irresponsibility. In September, when the city embarrassed itself internationally in the federal election, it took several tough days for the governing mayor and his interior senator to speak at all. “Det is Berlin” is what people like to say. Franziska Giffey’s success will also depend on whether she succeeds in countering this destructive fatalism with a new narrative.
To do this, the coalition must break the power of the districts. For a good 100 years, Berlin’s larger ambitions have been regularly seeping into the nirvana of jurisdiction of the Senate and districts. Their strong position was the price they paid for the fact that self-confident cities like Charlottenburg or Cöpenick merged into the unified community of Greater Berlin in 1920. Since then there have been repeated attempts to clearly regulate the responsibilities, the success: see above. It is a small miracle that Berlin has coped well with the corona pandemic so far. But the pressure of having to make increasingly complex decisions in the city is growing steadily – from building new apartments to designing a climate-neutral city.
Dispute about dispossession
In their coalition agreement, the SPD, the Greens and the Left have devoted an entire chapter to organizing the city. “The coalition is daring a new departure for the Berlin administration,” it says. Apparently, the coalition does not want to promise more than “dare” for the time being. That sounds faint-hearted, because the left-wing alliance not only has a very solid majority among the electorate and in the House of Representatives. For the first time, it also filled all mayor posts in the twelve Berlin districts.
Seen in this way, the SPD, the Greens and the Left in Berlin can only fail because of themselves. The breakpoints for this are obvious. There is the traffic turnaround, the big green issue in the city. Regine Günther, the senator responsible up to now, has pushed a lot, but also left a patchwork. The new strong woman of the party, Bettina Jarasch, will now be measured by whether she succeeds in making the visible change to a city that is less dominated by cars. The conflict with Giffey is almost inevitable: “Free travel for free citizens”, the social democrat seems to be guided by this old slogan. The second major point of contention is the socialization of large housing companies. More than a million Berliners voted in favor, the left supports the initiative vehemently, Giffey is actually against it, in principle and because it considers this to be too expensive and impractical. A commission is now to examine the possibilities of expropriation. In a year, when she presents her results, the argument will break out again. The left alliance has already been paralyzed by such disputes in the past five years.
Franziska Giffey will therefore have to achieve two things in the next few years: She has to refute the impression that powdery mildew is lying on the new coalition from the outset because it is just a newly occupied version of the old one. And she has to make sure that this city is fully functional. Berlin’s governing mayor will need a lot of skill. More than ever in her career.