Big defeat
Giffey loses her direct mandate to the CDU
02/12/2023, 10:25 p.m
Whether she can remain governing mayor is still open. However, Franziska Giffey loses her direct mandate for the House of Representatives by a clear margin to a rather unknown CDU politician.
Berlin’s top SPD candidate, Franziska Giffey, is still hoping to remain governing mayor. The head of the Berlin SPD has already lost her direct mandate: her Neukölln 6 constituency on the southern outskirts of Berlin has brought in CDU candidate Olaf Schenk.
The constituency includes the district of Rudow, the southern Blumenviertel and the southern Gropiusstadt. Giffey got more than 40 percent here in the September 2021 election. Now, after counting almost all votes, it is only 29.4 percent.
The election to the House of Representatives is a repeat election ordered by the Berlin Constitutional Court. Compared to the election a year and a half ago, the situation in Rudow has turned around: Schenk got 27.8 percent at the time. Now he has reached 45 percent and is moving into the House of Representatives.
Jarasch only gets 10 percent
Giffey’s co-party leader Raed Saleh, who is also the leader of the SPD parliamentary group in the House of Representatives, has also lost his constituency. In 2021 he had won his Spandau 2 constituency with 32.3 percent. Now he only got 25.9 percent.
The relationship with the CDU has also reversed itself in the Spandau 2 constituency: CDU candidate Ersin Nas achieved 21.1 percent a year and a half ago. Now he comes to 33.6 percent and moves as a newcomer to the House of Representatives. Greens top candidate Bettina Jarasch also ran in Spandau 2 – she got 10.3 percent there.
Despite their defeats, both Giffey and Jarasch will be members of the newly elected House of Representatives, as both were covered by their party lists: Jarasch on the state list of the Greens, Giffey on the district list of the Neukölln SPD.