Its new governor-mayor Berlin Kai Wegner (CDU) seems to have been necessary votes of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) to be electedas it did not receive votes corresponding to the agreed government coalition Christian Democrats (CDU) and Social Democrats (SPD).

“The AfD just wants to cause chaos, it is the enemy of democracy,” the newly elected mayor of Tagesspiegel said, noting that “the coalition has 86 seats, exactly the number of votes in yesterday’s third vote.” The AfD, for its part, announced that at least 12 of its representatives voted in favor of the coalition in the third round, as the required majority of 80 seats was not reached in the first two..

“We don’t get votes from right-wing populists and Nazis. We do not need their votes – and they were not there, ”said the head of the SPD parliamentary group in Berlin. Raed Saleh, denying that members of his team did not vote for Mr. Wegner. In previous days, the SPD base in the German capital had voted 54% in favor of an alliance with the CDU.

Leader Greenery Ricardo Lang criticized the CDU and the SPD that they “entered the third ballot without a guaranteed majority and allowed the AfD to say they had elected the mayor”, while on the left, Thuringian prime minister Bodo Ramelo said he saw “many similarities” with his state’s cause. , where Liberal candidate (FDP) Thomas Kemmerich was elected Prime Minister by the votes of the AfD, but resigned a month later under pressure from critics.

OUR The episodic elections of Mr. Wegner are now worrying the entire German press. “Germany is a clownish federal republic, and Berlin is its worthy capital,” writes the newspaper Die Welt, while t-online speaks of “the worst start, with elections, a shame for the politically shaky capital” and describes Kai Wegner as “the most weakest mayor in the world. “Terriblely poor Berlin,” writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, blaming the SPD for “extremely poor management skills.” The city “has lost precious time and has long lost contact with metropolitan areas like Munich or Hamburg, and the clientele attitude makes the city the laughingstock of the world,” the newspaper writes. “Wegner’s election is a humiliation, not a triumph,” read the Tageszeitung headline, expressing doubts about whether the new coalition could make a difference in Berlin when it starts with so many problems and it has only 3 left. 5 years until the next election.

Her choices 12th of Februarywho won the CDU, were a repeat of the 2021 elections, which were annulled due to “significant irregularities” in the voting process. Thus, the five-year term is counted from the date of the first election. Kai Wegner has been the first Christian Democrat mayor since 2011, and from 2016 to the present, a coalition of the SPD, the Greens and the Left has ruled Berlin.

Source: RES-IPE