Berlin inaugurates conservative mayor for the first time in 22 years

Berlin will have a conservative mayor for the first time in 22 years. Kai Wegner, of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), will govern in the city-state thanks to a coalition with the Social Democrats of the SPD, which reaped the worst results in its history in the last regional elections, held last February. The acting mayor, Franziska Giffey, announced the pact on Monday along with a government program entitled The best for Berlin, highly focused on new climate protection projects for the German capital.

Berliners returned to the polls in February to repeat the regional elections of September 2021, annulled by the Constitutional Court due to a series of irregularities on the day of the vote. The Christian Democrats led the Social Democrats by more than 10 percentage points. The Greens, which until now were part of the coalition that governed Berlin along with the left of Die Linke, were even with the Social Democrats. In theory, they could have repeated the tripartite formula, because they had a comfortable majority, but Giffey has understood that the city was asking for a change that meant that she could no longer repeat as mayor.

The Social Democratic defeat was a setback for the chancellor’s party, Olaf Scholz, who had to accept that for the first time in more than two decades his formation was not the most voted in the multicultural and sociologically left-wing German capital, of 3.8 million population. The three parties that make up the federal coalition (SPD, Greens and Liberals) fared badly at the meeting in Berlin: they all lost votes, but the Liberals also stayed out of the regional Parliament by not exceeding the 5% vote threshold. .

The digitization of the Administration is one of the many pending subjects in the city, where many procedures still cannot be carried out online and it is very difficult to obtain an appointment in person at the municipal offices. Wegner and Giffey promised to remedy it. In the case of housing, which is scarce and expensive because each year around 50,000 new inhabitants arrive in the city, the new mayor assured that the procedures for starting new urban developments will be simplified.

The pact includes a budget of 1,000 million euros which, among other things, will provide better equipment for the police and firefighters, and will allow the price of 29 euros to be maintained for the monthly regional public transport ticket.

The CDU won the re-election with 28.2% of the vote, while the SPD and the Greens got 18.4% each. Die Linke achieved 12.2%. Since the Constitutional Court determined that the elections had to be repeated due to the chaos of election day, the notion has spread that Berlin is a chaotic and poorly managed city where nothing works. Wegner focused his campaign on pointing out the many problems in the capital and contrasting his proposals with those of the Greens, especially on mobility issues.

SPD deputies have to give the pact the green light in a vote on April 23. The next day the regional CDU will also decide on the coalition agreement in a party meeting. If both formations say yes, the signing of the document is scheduled for April 26. A day later, the new mayor, Wegner, is expected to be elected in plenary session of the regional Parliament.