BERLIN (Reuters) – Berliners return to the polls on Sunday, choosing a government for the city state for the second time in 18 months after, for the first time in German history, a court ruled the election invalid because of irregularities.
The vote could turf left-wing mayor Franziska Giffey out of office well before the end of her term and complicate life for the Federal Chancellor, her party ally Olaf Scholz, by depriving his coalition of more votes in the upper house of parliament.
The repeat vote, ordered after the original, Sept. 21, 2021 election was marred by irregularities including long queues and voters receiving incorrect ballot cards, is one more item on the charge sheet for those who see the German capital as a sclerotic mess that belies Germany’s reputation for efficiency.
The opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) hope this message will win them a victory and put wind in their sails ahead of October’s vote in Hesse, home to Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt, where a conservative premier risks losing office to another Scholz ally.
Polls give the Christian Democrats around 25% of the vote in Berlin, comfortably ahead of the Social Democrats (SPD) on 21%, suggesting voters are sympathetic to the idea of ending 22 years of uninterrupted Social Democrat rule.
“I want people to look at Berlin and see a place where things function,” said Christian Democrat candidate Kai Wegner, promising to make public administration faster, fix up crumbling schools and improve public order.
But far more voters in a city known for its arts and party scenes support parties to his left, including Giffey’s current coalition partners the Greens, on 17%, and the Left party, on 8%, meaning that even if Wegner does come first he may struggle to form a government.
For young voters, many of them from immigrant backgrounds, the CDU’s calls to beef up policing are especially unnerving.
For Berlin’s critics, debacles like the city’s new airport, opened in 2020 a decade late and many times over budget, symbolise the gulf between the shabby, if lovable, capital and wealthier cities like Munich or Hamburg.
For historian Tim Moss, the city’s struggles partly result from the Cold War, when a divided Berlin was a shop window for the competing Communist and capitalist worlds, meaning it could coast along as paymasters poured in subsidies. The city has since struggled to achieve self-reliance, he said.
Some criticisms look out of date: the energy crisis resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has cast the future of some of Germany’s successful manufacturing industries into doubt, whereas Berlin’s technology scene has made it one of Europe’s fastest-growing cities and one of Germany’s fastest-growing regional economies.
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Susan Fenton)
