“Berlin’s New Governing Mayor Elected After Third Ballot, SPD’s Refusal to Vote Damages New Government”

Only in the third ballot is Kai Wegner elected as the new Governing Mayor of the capital. The Social Democrats in particular are likely to have refused him the previously missing votes. Berlin’s SPD would have done well to give up governing altogether.

What a disaster! Berlin’s new governing mayor needs three attempts to be elected to the Red City Hall. The votes missing in the first two votes are in all probability assigned to the social democratic camp. There, participation in the government alliance with the CDU remains highly controversial. Partly because of differences in content with the Christian Democrats and a lack of enthusiasm about the joint government program, but also partly because of their own leadership. It’s not at all clear whether the middle finger of the naysayers was aimed at the new mayor, Kai Wegner – or at their own party leaders, Franziska Giffey and Raed Saleh.

Whatever the motivation, the consequences are fatal: the deputies damaged the new head of government and gave the AfD the chance to discredit his election by claiming to vote for Wegner. However, the portrayal of the right-wing extremists who despise democracy is not plausible. The fact that the CDU and SPD blame each other for the disaster leads to the worst possible false start for a new government.

It would probably have been better for everyone involved if the SPD had left government alone. The SPD’s loss of votes in the repeat elections in February was so devastating that public sentiment left it with no choice but to give up the leadership of the government and thus the alliance with the Greens and the Left. By election day, Giffey had already broken up with Bettina Jarasch, the Greens’ traffic senator and opponent in the election campaign, to such an extent that further constructive cooperation was hardly conceivable.

Giving up power, yes, but don’t give up

It remains questionable, however, how the SPD was able to derive an order for further participation in the government from the admission of the election defeat – and with the same personnel in some cases (the profileless Interior Senator Iris Spranger and the new Economics Senator Giffey are again sitting on the government bench). After all, the loss of votes by Red-Green-Red was mainly due to the SPD and Giffey. Berliners not only blamed the party, which has been in power since the turn of the millennium, for the capital’s many problems, but also for the embarrassment that the election had to be repeated at all. Giffey also contested the re-election campaign with a state party behind her, most of which have long since turned away from her.

It was correspondingly controversial in the SPD that Giffey of all people was now allowed to negotiate a coalition with the CDU and secure a senator post for himself. Just 54 percent of the SPD members who took part in the survey voted to form a coalition. A lead of almost a thousand votes saved Giffey’s career from the end. But an enthusiastic restart looks different.

The SPD dispute continues to govern

Now the Giffey camp can continue to govern, but it also brings the inner discord within the SPD back into the Senate. At the same time, Berlin really needs a government whose members are primarily concerned with government activities. The supporters of the coalition want to give the SPD a new profile as a junior partner, instead of having to thoroughly reorganize itself during a break on the opposition bench. In fact, however, there is much to suggest that the SPD, by holding on to power, is continuing to focus the spotlight on its own inner turmoil.

This gives Wegner’s CDU the opportunity to present itself as the more serious of the two governing parties. Especially since she holds all the reins in her hands with the office of governing mayor and the senators for finance and justice. The Greens, who are so strong within the S-Bahn ring, are likely to attack the Social Democrats from the left for three and a half years. The success of the new state government now depends largely on the left wing of the SPD. Does he support the coalition and thus Giffey, or does he continue the self-dismantling of the SPD, which was once so successful in Berlin? The voting behavior in the election of the new Governing Mayor points to the latter. Have fun with this chaos SPD, Mr. Wegner.