The conservative CDU is leading the polls with 23% as the traditionally left-leaning capital of Berlin is gearing up for an election re-run on 12 February that the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of Tuesday following 2021’s botched elections.
Berlin held regional elections in 2021, but shortages of ballots and long lines in front of polling stations that meant not everybody could vote in time prompted regional authorities to find the election invalid and hold a rerun.
Less than two weeks before the planned repeat election on 12 February and with many mail-in ballots already cast, the country’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, finally provided clarity on whether the rerun is legal. After several lawmakers and citizens had challenged the fresh election as unconstitutional, the Court ruled in favour of the repeat election on Tuesday
Far from a formality, the fresh election could upend the coalition of the socialist SPD, the Greens and far-left Die Linke led by SPD Mayor and close confidante of Chancellor Olaf Scholz Franziska Giffey, that has been in power since 2016.
The Conservative CDU, currently in opposition, has successfully exploited the chaos surrounding the election’s organisation, calling the governing coalition incompetent with slogans like “Berlin finally needs to function.”
The election rerun will also allow Berliners to vote again in the federal election, as it was held in conjunction with the regional one in 2021, meaning that while the result will not be enough to change majorities in the Bundestag, it could nevertheless lead to marginal changes more than a year after the current government took office.
(Julia Dahm | EURACTIV.de)
Source: euractiv.com
