Repetition in Berlin: Historical coordination with low turnout and political memoir

Veröffentlicht:

Von:

The weather could not have been more appropriate this Sunday in Berlin. Easy drizzle over the capital, people shuffle with umbrellas towards the polling station. Snakes do not form on the ballot boxes that day. It is actually a historical coordination. For the first time in the history of the Federal Republic, a choice must be repeated in part: 0.9 percent of all voters are affected, a fifth of all Berliners are allowed to vote. Maybe you should say better: have to vote. Real tension did not arise in this election campaign.

It happens as it had to come: far fewer voters made their vote than two years ago. The weather is not to blame.

With closure of the polling stations, the search for the meaningfulness of this choice of repetition begins. It took far too long for a fifth of the Berliner to vote again - now half of the current election period has been over. The coalition has long been formed, the Chancellor has long since been elected. The meaning of the repetition choice warted every month. Two years until the correction of serious failures are significantly too long. The lengthy procedure of the election test is an Achilles' heel.

In addition, it was clear that the result would not play a practical role before the choice of repeat. It remains a strange special phenomenon in Berlin politics.

The so -called political will formation was difficult: there were no election programs, only a few campaign events and hardly any contents. Federal prominence almost did not get lost in the affected areas. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and opposition leader Friedrich Merz preferred to stay away from the curious Berlin mini election campaign.

In short: this repetition was missing in many things that are a Bundestag election. The SPD chairman Franziska Giffey said on the election evening: "People are wondering, what does it work if I go there now." Some will not even understand what it is about.

What remains of this Sunday? The realization that elections are deprived of their importance if they are not carried out properly and without breakdowns in the first round. And that this city does not even work smoothly and simple things like a choice. That must not be repeated.

If there was a determining topic in the past few days, it was less the examination of the politics of the traffic light coalition - but the protests against the AfD. Anyone who had hoped that the right wing party would be given less influx in the choice of repetition was disappointed. In Pankow, the AfD increased significantly, at least easy in other districts. The CDU also won. So the election evening became a memo for the traffic lights - both SPD, Greens and FDP cut off significantly worse than 2021.

Because of the poor turnout and because only a fifth of the votes were counted, the losses remained moderate. A memo that could be much clearer in the upcoming state elections and the European elections. The coalition no longer has a lot of time to react to the mood in the country.

The following table shows an overview of the election results of the repetition choice in Berlin:

| Party | Voting share (%) |
| ————— | ——————: |
| SPD | 21.5 |
| CDU | 20.1 |
| Green | 17.8 |
| AfD | 13.7 |
| Left | 11.4 |
| FDP | 8.9 |
| Other | 6.6 |

The turnout was only 50.4 percent, significantly lower than in the first election in 2021, where it was still 75.5 percent.

The low turnout and the fact that most votes have not been counted re -counted have led the losses to the parties moderate. Nevertheless, the result shows that the Berliners are dissatisfied with the political situation and that this could express this more clearly in upcoming elections. The current coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP has only a limited time to regain the trust of voters and to react to the mood in the country. It remains to be seen whether they will succeed.


Source: Berliner Morgenpost/OTS