Partial repeat of the federal election – SPD remains just ahead of the Greens, CDU and AfD in Berlin with gains compared to 2021
Berlin State Returning Officer
Video: rbb|24 | 02/11/2024 | Material: rbb|24 | Image: Berlin State Returning Officer
The 2021 federal election was repeated on Sunday in a fifth of Berlin’s electoral districts. The CDU and AfD recorded slight gains, while the traffic light parties lost. There was no change in the twelve direct mandates.
- Repeat election in a fifth of Berlin’s electoral districts
- defended all twelve direct mandates
- Voter turnout lower than 2021
- around 550,000 people were able to vote again
In the partial repeat of the 2021 federal election in Berlin, the parties in the traffic light government – SPD, Greens and FDP – recorded slight losses. The CDU and AfD have gained slightly compared to the election two and a half years ago. The information is based on the valid results of 2021 and the results of the partial repeat on Sunday.
The CDU (+1.3) and AfD (+1.0) each gained around one percentage point and thus somewhat offset their losses compared to the 2017 federal election in Berlin. The SPD, Greens and FDP, on the other hand, recorded slight losses, the Greens of 0.3, the FDP of 0.9 and the SPD of 1.2 percentage points. This means that overall they have lost some of their profits compared to 2017, and the FDP even slipped into the red. The left remains roughly stable and gains 0.1 percentage points compared to 2021.
When it comes to the order of parties in the 2021 federal election, the AfD is overtaking the FDP. At the first attempt at the election in Berlin, the SPD was in the lead almost two and a half years ago (2021: 23.4, now: 22.3 percent of the second votes), followed by the Greens (2021: 22.4; now: 22.0), CDU (2021: 15.9, now: 17.2), Left (2021: 11.4, now: 11.5), FDP (2021: 9.1, now: 8.1) and AfD (2021: 8, 4, now: 9.4).
All direct mandates remain
There were no shifts in the direct mandates. Also in the The 2021 winners maintained their lead in the four most contested constituencies.
SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert (SPD) will continue to represent Tempelhof-Schöneberg directly in the Bundestag. Almost two and a half years after the actual election, it is clear that he won constituency 81 with 26.7 percent [wahlen-berlin.de]. He originally received 27.1 percent of the vote.
The former governing mayor Michael Müller (also SPD) also retains his direct mandate. He has now finally been confirmed as the direct candidate for Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and has achieved 25.6 percent after all votes have been counted. This meant that his final result in the 2021 federal election was revised downwards by 2.3 percentage points.
In Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and Tempelhof-Schöneberg, a change in the direct mandate was possible due to tight voting conditions and a high error rate in the actual election.
Shifts in list positions
Pankow and Reinickendorf were also among the electoral districts in which a change of direct mandate was possible.
In Pankow, the Green constituency winner in 2021, Stefan Gelbhaar, ultimately confidently defended his seat in parliament, and in Reinickendorf the former Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters (CDU) even expanded her lead. Just like Müller and Kühnert, they would still have been protected by their party’s state lists in the event of a defeat.
However, the Berlin repeat election still has a personnel impact for some of the MPs who only entered the Bundestag in 2021 via their parties’ state lists. The slight shifts in the second votes now mean that some compensatory mandates are filled differently – or are eliminated. Specifically, there were seven shaky candidates in Berlin who had to worry about their mandates due to their narrow entry into the Bundestag.
Also represented in the Bundestag are the Green party deputy Andreas Audretsch (Neukölln), CDU general secretary Ottilie Klein (Berlin-Mitte), and the AfD politician Götz Frömming (Pankow). However, four Berlin politicians have to vacate their seats in the Bundestag. The left-wing politician Pascal Meiser (Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain Prenzlauer Berg Ost), Green politician Nina Stahr (Steglitz-Zehlendorf), SPD politician Ana-Maria Trăsnea (Treptow-Köpenick) and the FDP politician Lars Lindemann (Tempelhof-Schöneberg) lose their seats in parliament.
The SPD’s balancing mandate now falls to the Lower Saxony state list, with Angela Hohmann replacing Trăsnea. Franziska Krumwiede-Steiner from North Rhine-Westphalia receives the Green Party seat from Stahr. Christine Buchholz from the Hessian Left takes Meiser’s place. With Lindemann’s departure, the FDP will lose a Bundestag mandate. Parliament will therefore shrink from 736 to 735 seats.
Low voter turnout
Unlike a regular federal election, no forecast of the voting results was published after the polling stations closed at 6 p.m. No projections were made during the evening either.
Votes had to be held again in around a fifth of Berlin’s electoral districts. According to returning officer Bröchler, voter turnout in the 455 electoral districts was 51 percent. In the overall view with the valid results from 2021, the partial repeat of the federal election has led to the lowest turnout in a federal election in Berlin since 1990. According to the state election authority, a total of 69.5 percent of those eligible to vote cast their votes. The lowest value so far was recorded in the 2009 federal election at 70.9 percent. In 2021, when the Bundestag and House of Representatives were elected on the same day, at least 75.2 of those eligible to vote cast their votes.
The new result results from the votes already valid from 2021 and the results of those electoral districts in which the election was invalid and had to be repeated on Sunday.
Minor breakdowns in Pankow and Kreuzberg
“From an organizational point of view, the election went well,” said state returning officer Stephan Bröchler to rbb24 Abendschau. “There have been minor mistakes that have occurred, but that is entirely within the scope of conducting elections.” Bröchler explained the low voter turnout with the manageable effects. “Apparently it wasn’t that attractive because the political majority in the Bundestag hasn’t changed.”
At midday, Bröchler confirmed rbb information that there was a smaller one There was a breakdown in Berlin-Pankow. The election workers initially couldn’t get hold of the voting documents because a key was missing. Voters were only able to cast their votes here about 40 minutes late.
At another polling station in Pankow, an electoral officer was replaced by his deputy because he was “uncooperative,” the DPA reported. There were no delays there.
In Kreuzberg, according to Bröchler, an electoral board was delayed due to an accident with a taxi, so that the polling station in question also started late. “This can happen with the best organization,” said the state returning officer.
No forecasts or projections
Even if the Berlin repeat election will probably only change the composition of the parliamentary groups in the Bundestag, observers believe it could be a test of sentiment for current federal politics.
The polling stations were open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. There were no forecasts or projections: the polling stations transmitted the results of their counts over the course of the evening to the state returning officer, who then reported interim results. Shortly before 1 a.m. the… Constituency 83, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg-Prenzlauer-Berg-Ost received the last result from a polling station.
Note: An earlier version of this article stated that an additional CDU seat would go to Jürgen Hardt from North Rhine-Westphalia. That’s wrong. Hardt was previously a member of the Bundestag. His mandate was in jeopardy due to possible postponements due to the Berlin re-election, but it is now clear that he will keep it. Please excuse the mistake.