The 2021 federal election was a disaster for Berlin. The organization failed in places – ballot papers were missing and voting was sometimes allowed to take longer than permitted. This Sunday, hundreds of thousands of Berliners are allowed to go to the polls again. This is not a danger to the traffic lights, but it will still be exciting.
Bundestag debates, long meetings, arguments with the SPD and the Greens – for Klaus-Dieter Gröhler, all of this was a thing of the past. In 2021, the CDU politician lost his Bundestag mandate and has since been testing prospective lawyers again at the Legal Examination Office of the states of Berlin and Brandenburg, his old job. But then came December 13, 2023: The Federal Constitutional Court decided that the federal election in Berlin had to be repeated more extensively than expected. In 455 electoral districts, people are supposed to be in detention, so to speak.
CDU politician Gröhler in the street election campaign on Mainzer Straße in Wilmersdorf.
“Of course I was happy,” Gröhler told ntv.de last Monday about the second chance. In 2021 he lost the constituency to the SPD after eight years. He is standing on Mainzer Strasse in Berlin-Wilmersdorf and is campaigning in front of a supermarket. It would be exciting for him to be able to represent this constituency again. “I was born and raised here.” However, he has lived in a different district for 25 years, like some of the other candidates.
The fact that he is now campaigning for votes in winter is thanks to the Berlin debacle on election day, September 26, 2021. The correct ballot papers were missing in large numbers, and in some cases votes were still being cast hours after the election had officially ended. But for the losers back then it now also means: new election, new luck. The date was quickly set for February 11th.
Traffic light will hold its majority
It is already the second repeat election for the people of the capital. A year ago the election to the House of Representatives was repeated. With a victory for the CDU: its top candidate Kai Wegner replaced the governing mayor Franziska Giffey from the SPD. But things won’t be as dramatic this time. The majority of the traffic light coalition, for example, is not in danger. The Left doesn’t have to worry about its two direct mandates in the capital either.
Still, this choice is interesting. At least 550,000 people are eligible to vote, which is more than in a state election in Bremen. This is a first test of sentiment before the European elections on June 9th and the state elections in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony in September. Berlin operates differently than the rest of the country, but instead of polls there will be tangible results on election evening. Does the traffic light get a lesson? Is the AfD converting its good values into a result? And: Will the CDU, SPD or Greens manage to steal constituencies?
Gröhler sees the latter as his mission. Because his constituency of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf is one of the focal points of the by-election. 42 percent of the polling districts there take part. In Pankow it is even 85 percent, in Reinickendorf around a third. The first two constituencies are in traffic light hands: in Pankow the Green politician Stefan Gelbhaar won, in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Michael Müller from the SPD, who had previously been the governing mayor of the capital. In Reinickendorf, the CDU candidate Monika Grütters came in first place. “It is an important factor for the Berlin CDU to take one or two constituencies away from the traffic lights,” says Gröhler. He expects that this will be reported on Monday.
Different mood than 2021
If it succeeds. Because in Pankow the CDU candidate only got 12.7 percent two years ago, half as much as the winner from the Greens had. He should rather fear the SPD. But they are suffering from the loss of trust in the traffic lights far more than the eco-party. In Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, however, Gröhler can have hopes. After all, he has already won the constituency twice. He would have to gain 5,000 votes to be directly elected. With 82,000 eligible voters, this is achievable, he says.
And in the street election campaign he notices that the mood has changed compared to 2021. “People didn’t take us seriously anymore,” he says. “They just saw the picture of Armin Laschet and moved on.” Now things are different. “People are just frustrated. I often hear: ‘Where is this chancellor?’ People complained about politicians’ lack of reliability, for example when it came to climate money or electromobility. “A lot of people are now really annoyed.”
Not only the former SPD city leader Müller is a high-profile opponent for the CDU candidate. Family Minister Lisa Paus is also running in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. She came second ahead of him in 2021. They know each other and Gröhler is even on a first-name basis with the Green Party politician. “In 2017, we exchanged cell phone numbers so we could apologize if she or I were late to a panel discussion.”
CDU MPs could suffer
Gröhler’s renewed candidacy could also have consequences within the party. If he wins the constituency, the current CDU MP Ottilie Klein may lose her seat in the Bundestag. That is one of the curiosities of this by-election and has to do with voting rights. Accordingly, the second vote result of a party determines how many seats it gets in the Bundestag. The directly elected candidates have their place secure. The remaining places will be allocated via the state list. So if there is one more direct election winner, everyone else moves down one place in the list.
Klein entered the Bundestag in 2021 from the last secured place. If Gröhler wins, she would be in danger. “But that’s only the case if the CDU gets a bad result in Berlin and I of all people win the constituency,” says Gröhler. He himself fell victim to a similar constellation in 2021. When the later CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja surprisingly won the Marzahn-Hellersdorf constituency in the east of the city, Gröhler had to leave the Bundestag because his place on the list was no longer high enough. “I can’t help it,” he says about the current situation.
If he is lucky, Gröhler can be welcomed into the CDU parliamentary group by Friedrich Merz at the end of February. He finds it better than expected, as he tells ntv.de. Until then, he can think about how to explain to the parliamentary group leader why he once advertised Norbert Röttgen as party leader.