After the 2021 breakdown disaster, the federal election in Berlin will be partially repeated. The CDU and AfD can make slight gains. According to Wegner, the CDU’s plus is thanks to his state party.
In the partial repeat of the federal election in Berlin, there are signs of slight gains for the CDU and AfD. The traffic light parties SPD, Greens and FDP are losing some ground compared to the overall result for 2021. This is based on information from the state election authority on the Internet, according to which around 95 percent of all electoral areas have been counted as of 8:15 p.m.
This information is based on the valid results from 2021 and the results of the partial repeat this Sunday that have already been counted.
Based on this still incomplete interim result, the CDU and AfD can expect an increase of around one percentage point. The SPD, Greens and FDP must each expect losses of around 0.7 percentage points. According to these interim results, the left remains roughly stable.
There will initially be no change to the order of the parties in the 2021 federal election. At the first attempt at the election in Berlin, the SPD was in the lead almost two and a half years ago (23.4 percent of the second votes), followed by the Greens (22.4), CDU (15.9), Left (11.4), FDP (9 .1) and AfD (8.4).
Wegner: CDU-Plus is thanks to the state party
Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner attributed the expected growth of his CDU to the work of the state party. “This is mainly because we do good government work in Berlin,” said Wegner on RBB television. His party, which governs the capital together with the SPD, conducted an intensive election campaign. “We have a good mood for the CDU in the city.”
Lower voter turnout
The voter turnout is below that of 2021. According to the state election management, 40.2 percent of those eligible to vote in the 455 electoral districts and associated postal voting districts in which voting took place again cast their vote by 4 p.m.
On September 26, 2021, at the same time two hours before the polls closed, the number was 57 percent in the electoral districts in question. In all Berlin electoral districts combined – including those that did not vote again – voter turnout in the federal election was 75.2 percent.
According to a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court, new elections were held in a fifth of the 2,256 electoral districts in Berlin because there were many organizational problems and mishaps during the 2021 election. Almost 550,000 Berliners were called to vote; the polling stations closed at 6 p.m. According to the state election management, the voting process on Sunday was calm and orderly, despite constant rain and unpleasant weather, apart from a few minor hiccups.
Start of an important election year
The election marks the start of an important election year in Germany: the European elections take place on June 9th, followed by state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg in September. Even before the repeat election in Berlin, it was clear that this would not change the majority in the Bundestag or the majority of the traffic light coalition – the proportion of those entitled to repeat voting out of all eligible voters nationwide is only 0.9 percent.
Election day 2021 was chaotic
On September 26, 2021, in addition to the election for the Bundestag, the elections for the Berlin House of Representatives, the district council assemblies and a referendum took place in the capital. A lot went wrong back then: long queues in front of polling stations, missing or incorrect ballot papers, a temporary interruption in voting in some places – the list of problems was long. Some voters cast their votes well after 6 p.m., when forecasts and projections had already been published.
For this reason, the two botched elections at the state and district level were completely repeated on February 12, 2023 by order of the Berlin Constitutional Court. Organizationally, everything went largely smoothly at the time; the political consequence was a change of government from red-green-red to black-red.
The Karlsruhe judges, in turn, only partially declared the federal election invalid in a ruling from December 2023. Nevertheless, it was the first repeat election in history ordered by the Federal Constitutional Court.
This time things worked better
On Sunday things would run smoother in Berlin thanks to better preparation. According to state returning officer Stephan Bröchler, there were delays in the voting process in two cases. In a polling station in the Pankow district, a key for a locked room with the voting documents was missing. The electoral board did not receive the key from the daycare center there. Documents were then delivered by the district, so that the restaurant opened at 8:40 a.m. with a 40-minute delay.
In Kreuzberg, according to Bröchler, an electoral board was delayed due to an accident with a taxi, so that the polling station in question also started late. “This can happen with the best organization,” said the state returning officer.
Repeat with some special features
The partial repetition had some peculiarities. The parties were not allowed to put forward any new candidates; the ballot paper had to look like it did in 2021. This led, for example, to the former AfD member of the Bundestag Birgit Malsack-Winkemann formally running again, who had not made it into the Bundestag in 2021. She was arrested in a large-scale raid in December 2022 and is in custody. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office accuses her of membership and support of a (right-wing) terrorist organization.
Voting took place in all twelve Berlin federal parliamentary constituencies, although to very different degrees. In Pankow, 85 percent of the polling districts were affected, in Lichtenberg only 2.9 percent.
At the first attempt at the federal election in Berlin, the SPD was ahead in 2021 (23.4 percent of the second votes), followed by the Greens (22.4), CDU (15.9), Left (11.4), FDP (9.1) and AfD (8.4). Of the 12 direct mandates that are up for grabs in the capital, the SPD won 4, the Greens and CDU won 3 each and the Left won 2. A further 17 Berlin politicians were elected via the party lists, making a total of 29. The SPD and the Greens each have 7, CDU 5, Left 4, FDP and AfD each have 3 members in the Bundestag.