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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party suffered a bitter setback on Sunday in a highly symbolic local election in Berlin, its stronghold for more than 20 years. He was defeated by the conservative opposition. Although the defeat is mainly due to local problems, it comes at a time when Scholz is the target of criticism, in particular for his procrastination in supporting Ukraine militarily.
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of former Chancellor Angela Merkel took first place in the election for the local parliament of the German capital with about 28% of the vote (+10 points), against about 18% of the SPD Social Democrats — their worst result since the end of the Second World War — and also 18% for ecologists, according to the first estimates of the TV channels ARD and ZDF.
This is the first time since 1999 that the SPD has been defeated by the Conservatives in this way.
Olaf Scholz’s party may find it difficult, under these conditions, to retain the position of mayor of Berlin that it has held for more than 20 years. Even if, according to the first results, he could keep the majority of seats with his current coalition partners, environmentalists and left radicals.
Cancellation of elections
In the last vote in Berlin’s local parliament in 2021, the SPD still managed to come out on top, with just over 21%.
But the election at the time was marred by unprecedented organizational dysfunctions, which eventually led to its cancellation and a new ballot. This was the first time in the history of German regional elections since World War II that a new election had to be held.
Sunday’s election took place under the watchful eye of international observers from the Council of Europe, invited by the city itself to restore confidence.
The Social Democratic Party seems to have been penalized locally for scenes of violence and chaos last New Year’s Eve in Berlin, when firefighters and police were the target of fireworks in some neighborhoods with a large immigrant population.
The conservative opposition accused the municipal majority of laxity and started a heated debate about the failures of its integration policy in these neighborhoods.
national decline
The Berlin results also confirm trends observed nationally for several months, with a sharp erosion of the ruling Social Democrat party, a rise of the conservative opposition and also of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) formation.
This comes against a backdrop of rising inflation, intense debate over arms deliveries to Ukraine and public fears linked to a large number of migrants in the country, mainly Ukrainians.
(With AFP)