The CDU wins the parliamentary elections in Berlin. But it is not clear whether their top candidate Kai Wegner will become the new governing mayor of the capital. Anne Will tries to clarify with her guests how things can continue after the election.
It was an election thriller on Sunday evening. The CDU, with its top candidate Kai Wegner, clearly won the elections to the Berlin House of Representatives. The SPD takes second place – 105 votes ahead of the Greens. The FDP is no longer represented in the House of Representatives.
The red-green-red coalition that governs Berlin was also hit hard. The Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey loses her direct mandate, the three coalition parties lose more than five percentage points. Nevertheless, they could continue to govern with a comfortable majority in the House of Representatives. Giffey’s first cautious statements can be understood in this way.
Kai Wegner, the CDU’s top candidate, won the election, “but the voters made it possible for Red-Green-Red to continue to govern”,” says “Pioneer” editor-in-chief Michael Bröcker, analyzing the result in the ARD Talk show “Anne Will”. There the guests sometimes discuss quite cheerfully how things can continue in the capital after the parliamentary elections. Now exploratory talks have to be held. It depends on who communicates the smartest in the next few weeks and as many election gifts as possible on the negotiating table.”I still see a chance for the SPD,” says Bröcker.
Even if the CDU won the election, SPD leader Saskia Esken believes that the second-placed party can also conduct exploratory talks. She is in favor of analyzing the election results first. The dissatisfaction of the population with the government, the state, the administration played a role in the voting decisions of the citizens, she explains. “Now we have to consider how to continue the projects that the government has tackled over the past 13 months.” Berlin deserves a “coalition of cooperation,” and according to Esken, the coalition partners have shown in recent months that Red-Green-Red can do that.
“What else is there to analyze?” Asks Jens Spahn from the CDU. “The Senate was voted out, the head of government has no confidence among the citizens, all governing parties have lost,” is his analysis. There is no political legitimation for the continuation of this Senate.
Political scientist Ursula Münch, on the other hand, explains that the winner of the election has no government mandate. “You can feel like you’ve been commissioned, but that’s no use if other coalition partners don’t become real partners,” she says. In principle, there is nothing wrong with “continuing with the old team”. However, it is questionable how something like this will affect public perception.
Green leader Omid Nouripour sees it that way too. Whoever wants to govern must be able to form majorities. And that’s why election winner Kai Wegner will be the first to conduct talks. “And whoever governs after that must ensure that the Senate’s acceptance increases so that voter turnout doesn’t plummet, as we saw today.” Nouripour is the only one who congratulates Wegner on his electoral success on the show.
The guests at Anne Will’s place primarily blame the poorly functioning administration and internal security for the loss of confidence among the voters. “The city is dramatically under-governed,” said Bröcker. In 2021, the clear-up rate for criminal offenses was just 45 percent.
The riots on New Year’s Eve were a particular disaster, Nouripour knows. “We are experiencing a local low point in the riots here,” he emphasizes. The problem must be solved. For this it is necessary to increase the leisure activities for young people in problem areas or to research problems in schools. Giffey initiated this with her migration summit after the New Year’s Eve riots, says Esken. “Why haven’t you taken matters into your own hands in the last twenty years?” Spahn asks. He doesn’t get an answer. However, Esken points to a decline in juvenile delinquency in recent years.
“A summit on youth violence isn’t enough if I don’t equip the police and the judiciary,” says Bröcker. He demands that Berlin police officers, like in most other federal states, should be equipped with body cameras.
Nouripour answered a question from the moderator – and added: “We already have enough.” In truth, however, the trusting cooperation of the coalition partners is not objectionable.
Spahn sees it very differently: “The FDP must ask itself whether the so-called progress coalition in the traffic light is not more of a regression coalition for them.” In contrast to Nouripour, Spahn sees too much potential for disputes in the traffic light coalition, in which the FDP is constantly losing out.
At the end, Will asks political scientist Münch about the lessons she has learned from the election in Berlin. “It has been shown that there are issues that are close to people’s minds beyond the major crises: internal security, the problems in administration, you feel that every day. There is a certain insecurity. And the stupid thing is that that it takes a lot of time to get a handle on it.” Time that the new government in Berlin now has.
