Elections are free and secret. This also applies to Sören Benn’s election as district mayor of Pankow on Thursday evening. And yet that choice will go down in history. She is allegedly the first of a left-wing politician with votes from the AfD. It’s more than breaking a taboo, it’s breaking a dam. Many compare this with the election of FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich as Thuringian Prime Minister last year. Just like Kemmerich at the time, Sören Benn must now resign from his position.
But is that true? It is worth taking a closer look. Unlike Kemmerich from the smallest parliamentary group, incumbent Benn was allowed to believe that he could be re-elected without AfD votes despite a poor election result. That was agreed with the SPD, but five votes were still missing. They could have come from the CDU and / or the FDP, hardly from the Greens, who had their own candidate. Negotiations with everyone except the AfD had been hot for days, there were all kinds of signals. In the end, of all people, the five-member AfD parliamentary group said: We all voted for Benn! Out of spite of her role as a leper and because Sören Benn is a good local politician. Or maybe they just wanted the scandal.
At least they would have achieved that. Such statements are character assassination for the left, which is always and always particularly loudly outraged about right-wing activities. The Greens, who have already spread the scenario in the days before, say that Benn should never have let it come down to being able to be dependent on AfD votes in the end. That means: If he hadn’t been able to be sure of sufficient other votes, he should never have been allowed to run.
That is a lofty claim that Benn does not have to follow. In politics you can never be sure of applause – especially from the one from the wrong corner. In turn, the left should urgently write this knowledge in its red stud book. And look it up at the next opportunity if the outrage over the common voting behavior of others with the AfD is once again great.