Election to the House of Representatives
All data, all facts about the Berlin election
2/12/2023, 8:01 p.m
Election decision in the German capital: One year and four months after the debacle of autumn 2021, new elections are shifting the balance of power and majority in the Berlin House of Representatives. Is there a change? What alliances are possible? All election data at a glance.
According to projections, the CDU won the election in the state of Berlin by a clear margin. This means that there are major shifts in the Berlin House of Representatives in the course of the court-ordered repeat election. It is still unclear which party will govern with whom in the future. According to projections, the FDP is likely to fail at the five percent hurdle and is therefore not a possible coalition partner. In Berlin, the formation of a government is becoming difficult.
According to projections, the CDU emerged from the new elections as the strongest force for the first time in more than two decades. The Christian Democrats are well ahead of the SPD and the Greens. “Berlin has chosen the change,” said CDU top candidate Kai Wegner in a first reaction shortly after the polling stations closed. “Our job is to form a stable government. We want to lead a successful Berlin coalition.”
The previous allies of the red-green-red state government – SPD, Greens and Left – on the other hand all recorded losses. SPD and Greens are in a close race for second place. The AfD manages to re-enter the Berlin House of Representatives with a slight increase in votes.
In the projections, the SPD and the Greens have so far been almost on par. The left reached a good 12 percent. The AfD will be represented again in the House of Representatives with a slightly better result than in the 2021 election. In the projections, the FDP is well below the required hurdle.
The performance of the FDP not only affects any coalition considerations. Without the Liberals, there will also be a different distribution of seats in the House of Representatives for the remaining parties.
It is still completely unclear who will rule in Berlin in the future. For the change sought by election winner Wegner, the CDU needs at least one coalition partner. On the evening of the election, the Greens’ top candidate Bettina Jarasch spoke out in favor of continuing the coalition with the SPD and the left. “The current governing coalition has a clear and stable majority,” said Jarasch, referring to the preliminary figures.
Review: The 2021 election result in detail
The election, which was objected to by the court, took place on September 26, 2021 – at the same time as the federal elections. Due to numerous organizational mishaps, the Berlin Constitutional Court declared the vote invalid and ordered it to be repeated.
Note: All data, all facts about the Berlin House of Representatives election 2021 with the impressions of the election evening can be found here here.
In the 2021 House of Representatives election, the SPD had achieved 21.4 percent. The Greens were in second place with 18.9 percent, followed by the CDU with 18.0 percent. At that time, the left received 14.1 percent, the AfD 8.0 and the FDP 7.1 percent.
The new elections in Berlin are a novelty in the history of the Federal Republic. For the first time, an election had to be completely repeated at state level: Due to a series of glitches, problems and blatant errors in voting in September 2021, the Berlin Constitutional Court ordered a complete repetition of the election. The repeat date was set for today, February 12, 2023.