BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – The election of the new governing mayor in Berlin is taking a dramatic course. The CDU politician Kai Wegner missed the absolute majority required for the election as successor to Franziska Giffey in the second ballot in the Berlin House of Representatives on Thursday.
79 MPs voted for Wegner, 79 voted against him. An absolute majority of 80 votes was required for the election in the first two rounds. In the first attempt, Wegner received 71 yes votes. A majority of the votes cast is sufficient for an election in the third round. The session was adjourned until 3:30 p.m. after the failed election.
The CDU has 52 MPs in the new House of Representatives, the SPD 34. Together, the coalition has 86 votes and the opposition from the Greens, Left and AfD has 73.
Wegner had promoted the formation of a black-red coalition in recent weeks. He would be the first governing mayor from the ranks of the CDU after Eberhard Diepgen, who held this office until June 2001. The new coalition of the CDU and SPD is intended to replace the alliance of SPD, Left and Greens that had governed Berlin since 2016.
Unlike the SPD, there had been no public discussions about the black-red alliance among the Berlin Christian Democrats. At a CDU party conference, the coalition agreement passed without a dissenting vote, while the SPD’s approval in a member vote was significantly lower at 54.3 percent. The previous head of government Giffey is to get the post of economics senator in the new Senate.
The CDU emerged as the strongest party from the repeat elections in February, relegating the SPD and the Greens to their places. Giffey was then ready to give up her post for the Black-Red coalition, which she would have kept if Red-Green-Red had continued. The vote in February had become necessary because there had been numerous organizational glitches in the regular parliamentary elections in autumn 2021./ah/DP/jha