German conservatives hail election win in Berlin

13 Feb 2023

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Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Party CDU wins in a repeat election in Berlin, in a blow to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats who have governed the city state for 22 years. Germany‘s main opposition party on Monday celebrated its victory in a Berlin state election re-run made necessary by serious voting glitches in 2021, arguing that the result shows the party can appeal to voters in urban areas with center-right policies that include tough talk on immigration. The Associated Press has the story:

German conservatives hail election win in Berlin

Newslooks- BERLIN (AP)

Germany‘s main opposition party on Monday celebrated its victory in a Berlin state election re-run made necessary by serious voting glitches in 2021, arguing that the result shows the party can appeal to voters in urban areas with center-right policies that include tough talk on immigration.

The top candidates of the Christian Democratic Union party (CDU), Kai Wegner, left, and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Mayor of Berlin, Franziska Giffey, right, stay in a television studio in Berlin Germany, Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023. Germany’s conservative Christian Democrats on Monday celebrated their victory in a Berlin state election re-run made necessary by serious voting glitches in 2021. The party said the result shows it can appeal to voters in urban areas with center-right policies that include tough talk on immigration. (Sebastian Christoph Gollnow/dpa via AP)

The center-right Christian Democratic Union of former Chancellor Angela Merkel has struggled for years with declining support in major cities and last governed the capital in 2001. On Sunday, the party received 28.2% of the vote, gaining 10 percentage points as the three parties that made up the leftist regional government all lost supporters.

“This re-election result shows that the CDU can win in big German cities,” the party’s main candidate, Kai Wegner, told reporters.

Franziska Giffey, Governing Mayor of Berlin and top candidate of the Berlin SPD, is photographed during an interview at the SPD’s election party at Festsaal Kreuzberg, in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023. After the 2021 election, Giffey, who belongs to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, led the city as Berlin’s mayor in a three-party left-wing governing coalition with the Greens and the Left party. The 44-year-old was running again Sunday. (Christophe Gateau/dpa via AP)

He planned to hold talks with the center-left Social Democrats and the environmentalist Greens about swiftly forming a new coalition government. Both of those parties received 18.4% of the vote, a particularly grim result for the Social Democrats of Mayor Franziska Giffey, who took much of the blame after the chaotic election failures two years ago.

Franziska Giffey, right, Mayor of Berlin and top candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) for the Berlin state elections reacts with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, left, and SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil, rear, at the party’s headquarters in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 13, 2023. Germany’s conservative Christian Democrats on Monday celebrated their victory in a Berlin state election re-run made necessary by serious voting glitches in 2021. The party said the result shows it can appeal to voters in urban areas with center-right policies that include tough talk on immigration(Fabrizio Bensch/Pool Photo via AP)

During the election campaign conservatives also attacked her government as being soft on crime following an outburst of violence against first responders during New Year’s Eve celebrations.

The Christian Democrats’ national leader, Friedrich Merz, claimed the attacks were the result of a “little Pasha” mentality among youths in some immigrant communities, prompting accusations of racism from the left.