Only 105 votes separate SPD and Greens after the repeat election in Berlin. Lawyers should now check whether it has to be counted again. Forming a government will be difficult in any case.
In view of the conceivably narrow lead of the SPD in the Berlin repeat election, the state returning officer is examining a recount. “We will take a close look at the numbers again and discuss it with our lawyers,” said election officer Stephan Bröchler. According to the preliminary result, the SPD and the Greens both have 18.4 percent of the votes, but the SPD has a wafer-thin lead of 105 votes.
“It is indeed a very small gap,” said Bröchler. He assumes that the question of a recount will be decided this week. The deputy state returning officer, Roland Brumberg, pointed out: “A narrow result alone does not justify a recount.” As a “general regulation” after an election, the district returning officers now checked the election results again. They could order a recount, but according to Brumberg, this is only “legally restricted”.
A recount can only be ordered if there is concrete evidence of an incorrect result or an incorrect count. Because “you don’t want the administration to count everything again in the end,” said Brumberg. The electoral boards should be independent.
In a second step, the results will be presented to the state election committee, which will meet on February 27th. He can also order recounts if, according to the deputy state returning officer, he “does not consider submissions from the districts to be conclusive”. However, here too there must be concrete evidence of erroneous counts. At the moment, however, there are “no concrete indications” of such errors, emphasized Brumberg.
The CDU got 28.2 percent (2021: 18.0 percent) of the votes – the strongest result in the capital for a good 20 years. “The government mandate is clearly ours,” said top candidate Kai Wegner. “The Berliners have chosen the change.” At 18.4 percent, the SPD did worse than it has since 1950 (2021: 21.4). The Greens, who have governed with the Left and SPD since 2016, also achieved 18.4 percent (18.9). The AfD increased to 9.1 (8.0). It was a bitter election evening for the FDP, which was expelled from another state parliament with 4.6 percent (7.1).
Election researcher Thorsten Faas now expects the formation of a government to be lengthy. Despite the CDU’s high gains, it was difficult to read a “government signal” from the election result, said Faas. “The ball is in the hands of the Union. But whether they will succeed in forming a majority is more than open.” The previous Senate will remain in office in the meantime. “If one of the two parties decides to switch to the CDU, it will be difficult for the green or the red because they actually feel like they are the political opponents,” said the politics professor at the Free University of Berlin.
