A new chancellor for Germany (not until Christmas at the earliest) and a female mayor for Berlin

It’s the day after the general election and we still don’t know who will succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor, after 16 years in power. According to Olaf Scholz, the leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), it should be him, as his centre-left party won the biggest share of the vote (25.7%), albeit by less than two percentage points. However, according to Armin Laschet, the leader of the CDU, he should be the next chancellor, as his centre-right conservative party could still form a coalition government, for instance with the Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens. 

Too close to call

As expected, the results were very close, and the new coalition government will most likely be formed by three parties and not by two, for the first time since the 1950s. The Greens and FDP will act as kingmakers. Although the CDU came second, it had its worst election result in history (24.1%). Meanwhile the Greens, led by Annalena Baerbock, had their best ever result in a national election (14.8%), although they didn’t perform as well as they (and I) had hoped for. Nevertheless, the Greens are now the third party in Germany, followed by the pro-business party FDP (11.5%) and the anti-immigrant party AfD (10.3%). The left-wing party Die Linke just about managed to get into parliament by securing three direct mandates, though at 4.9% it fell below the 5% threshold needed to get into the Bundestag. 

Let the talks begin

Over the next few weeks and months, the parties will be busy discussing possible coalitions. Last time round it took them until the spring to form a government. This time the hope is that they will find a solution by Christmas. In Germany, the coalitions have funny names depending on their colours. Scholz would prefer a “traffic light” coalition (red-green-yellow) between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP. However, other coalitions are still possible: “Kenya” (black-red-green), “Deutschland” (black-red-yellow), “Jamaica” (black-green-yellow) and grand coalition (black-red). Fortunately, none of the parties want to govern with the far-right AfD.

The election results by geography

If you break down the results by geography, the north of Germany and parts of the west are red (SPD), the south and the remaining parts of the west are black (CDU/CSU), while the east is blue (AFD). If you zoom in into the cities, most of them are green or mainly green. For instance, Leipzig is a red/green island in a blue sea, Munich is a mainly green island in a black sea, Frankfurt is a green island surrounded by red and black, while Cologne and Stuttgart are red/green. Berlin is green in the centre (Mitte, Pankow, Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain, Schöneberg, Charlottenburg) and red in the surrounding neighbourhoods. I find it rather ironic that people who live in cities seem to worry more about the environment than people who live in the countryside, but clearly this election wasn’t just about the environment.

Queues and chaos in Berlin 

There were long queues at polling stations in Berlin yesterday. In some cases, people had to wait for up to two hours to vote. Officially polling stations were open from 8 am to 6 pm, but anyone who was in the queue by 6 pm was allowed to stay and vote. Anyone who showed up after 6 pm was sent away. The elections in Berlin were rather chaotic: in some places the ballot papers ran out! Things were made even more complicated by the fact that the Berlin marathon was also happening yesterday so many of the main streets were closed. 

The Berlin election

As well as the general election, Berliners were voting in local elections and a referendum. As a non-German EU citizen, I was only able to vote for my local district council (not even for the Berlin parliament), so I only had one ballot paper and one box to tick, but German nationals had several ballot papers and six votes in total. As far as I know, it is not possible to have British and German nationality now that the UK has left the EU, but do let me know if I am wrong. In any case, I already have two nationalities, but I would be interested in acquiring a third one if it meant I could vote.

The first female mayor for Berlin

In Berlin, the SPD is the first party, while the Greens are the second party (up by 3.7% from the previous elections), followed by the CDU and Die Linke. Meanwhile, Franziska Giffey (still not quite sure how to pronounce her name!) is set to become Berlin’s first female mayor. Apparently, she is open to coalition talks with all parties, except for the AfD, but it is likely that Berlin will continue to have a red-red-green government. As the Tagesspiegel put it, “Berlin will keinen Wechsel aber mehr Grün” i.e. Berlin doesn’t want a change, but it wants more Green.