Mayor confirmed in office
Bovenschulte elected with one more vote
7/5/2023 7:17 p.m
Andreas Bovenschulte has ruled in Bremen since 2019. This will probably remain the case in the coming years: with 49 out of 86 votes, the SPD politician was confirmed in the office of mayor. His coalition with the Greens and the Left can now get to work.
Around seven and a half weeks after the state elections in Bremen, the formation of the government there has been completed. The SPD politician Andreas Bovenschulte was confirmed in the citizenship as head of government. In the first ballot, 49 of the 86 MPs present voted for the 57-year-old – he received one vote more than the three-party coalition of SPD, Greens and Left Party that supports him. 37 parliamentarians voted against Bovenschulte.
Red-Green-Red has ruled in Bremen under Mayor Bovenschulte since 2019. After the state election, the three parties agreed to continue their alliance, and party conferences approved the coalition agreement at the weekend. In the newly elected state parliament, the SPD, the Greens and the Left have 48 of the 87 seats. The majority required to form a government was 44. In a separate ballot, the state parliament confirmed the other members of the Senate in accordance with the Bremen constitution.
Senators confirmed
The SPD emerged as the clear winner from the general election on May 14 and became the strongest force. A total of six parties are represented in the Bremen Parliament. In addition to the SPD, these are the CDU, the Greens, the Left, the FDP and the Alliance Germany. Its deputies ran in the election as representatives of the right-wing populist voters’ association Bürger in Wut (BIW), which has since decided to merge with the Alliance Germany.
Today’s session, Wednesday, was the second meeting of the new parliament; the constituent session had already taken place last week. The SPD politician Antje Grotheer was elected President of the Parliament. Traditionally, the strongest parliamentary group has the right to propose.
In the new government, the SPD has four senators alongside Bovenschulte as Senate President, Head of Government and Senator for Culture. These are the former Schleswig-Holstein state parliament member Özlem Ünsal for construction, Claudia Schilling as science and justice senator, Sascha Aulepp for children and education and Ulrich Mäurer for internal affairs and sport.
The Greens and the Left each have two senators. Björn Fecker is the Finance Senator and Kathrin Moosdorf is the Senator for Climate, Environment and Science in the government for the Greens. On the left, these are Economics Senator Kristina Vogt and Senator Claudia Bernhard, who is responsible for health, care, women, equal rights and consumer protection.