After the Berlin election, the CDU wants to quickly form a government. But a majority without the Union is also possible. What comes out in the end also depends on the self-discovery of the SPD – and on Franziska Giffey.
105 votes could decide on the political future of Berlin’s Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey. That’s how many votes her SPD had in the repeat election on Sunday, ahead of the Greens and thus in second place. Giffey would thus have the opportunity to continue the red-green-red alliance formed since 2016 and renewed after the 2021 breakdown election under SPD leadership and to remain head of town hall. The Greens and the Left are also not averse.
But there was something else: Because the victorious election winner is the CDU, which with 28.2 percent is almost ten percentage points ahead of the SPD and the Greens (18.4 percent each). “Berlin has chosen change,” said the CDU’s top candidate, Kai Wegner, and announced that he would send out invitations for exploratory talks to the SPD and the Greens on the same day. “The current Senate may still have an arithmetical majority in the House of Representatives, politically it gambled away the majority yesterday,” emphasizes the CDU federal chairman Friedrich Merz.
SPD is “in shock”
So who with whom? In the end, a lot depends on the SPD, which had its historically worst result in a Berlin parliamentary election. Self-reflection and possibly self-mutilation while at the same time looking for options for power: the actions of the SPD in the coming days and weeks could be difficult to predict.
Giffey’s serious face on Monday at the obligatory appointment at the federal party headquarters could be seen: it is seething in her, and in her party too. Helplessness reigns everywhere. “We are in shock,” said a leading Social Democrat. “Anyone who now knows how things will continue has my admiration.”
In the former People’s Party, which traditionally ticks more to the left, there are many sympathizers for Red-Green-Red. “The majority in the party is emotionally behind this alliance,” believes one board member. Others felt closer to the CDU than the Greens and the Left. On Monday, voices could also be heard who thought that the party, which had been in power for decades, going into opposition was worth discussing.
Continuation of government responsibility possible?
Giffey himself did not let himself be looked at in the power poker. “We started the election campaign so that the Red City Hall stays red,” she said. “Of course we will also have talks to explore the extent to which such a continuation is possible.” Her party will also speak to the CDU and accept their invitation, Giffey said. As the runner-up in the election, the SPD wants to play “a strong and also a leading role in forming a government”.
However, the election result shows that people want change, according to Giffey. The SPD therefore wants a “change agenda”. Giffey named internal security, housing construction, transport policy and administrative reform as four points on this agenda. This can certainly be understood as a warning to the Greens and the Left, who recently took different positions on the points than the SPD, which in turn is partly on the CDU line. If the red-green-red tripartite alliance continues, the coalition agreement negotiated in 2021 must be supplemented on these points, according to Giffey’s message.
Jarasch doesn’t rule anything out, but prefers red-green-red
The CDU can still hope for the SPD as a possible coalition partner – but possibly only if a new edition of Red-Green-Red fails. But the Greens with their top candidate Bettina Jarasch, who would like to continue with the SPD and the left, would theoretically be an option.
The top people Wegner and Jarasch had smashed a lot of china in the election campaign in the dispute over green projects such as Tempo 30 or the elimination of parking spaces. But Jarasch expressly did not rule out a coalition with the CDU on Monday – of course nothing would work without a turnaround in mobility and heating or climate-neutral urban redevelopment. She was “very excited” about the exploratory talks with the CDU.
Coalition without an election winner? “Completely normal political behavior”
All three parties still have a long way to go in order to come together – in whatever constellation. “It’s going to be a very long conversation,” Giffey predicted. It has happened time and again in Germany that the winner of the election, who represents the strongest parliamentary group, gets nothing at the end of the day because coalitions are forged past him. Ole von Beust (CDU) in Hamburg in 2001, Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) in Baden-Württemberg in 2011 and Bodo Ramelow (left) in Thuringia in 2014, for example, came to power in this way.
“It’s normal political behavior,” Giffey said. However, she did not comment on the question of what will become of herself if she cannot stay in the town hall in the end.
Whoever governs Berlin in the future has many challenges to overcome. High rents, a lack of apartments, climate protection, traffic problems, crime, ailing schools and a partly non-functioning administration are all part of it. In addition, according to the latest election results, the city is no longer divided politically into east and west, but into inner and outer districts: while the city center is practically green, people in the outer parts of the city mostly voted black.