From BZ/dpa
Senator Andreas Geisel (SPD) refuses to resign even after the constitutional court’s ruling on the complete repetition of the House of Representatives election.
He expressly rejected the demand from the ranks of the CDU. “I’m not free of responsibility, I’ve said that several times. But the question is how to deal with it, ”said Geisel on Thursday during the debate on the re-election in the House of Representatives.
“You can go home with it, or you can work.” In view of the current situation, which is about boosting housing construction, keeping rents stable and the city socially cohesive, he takes responsibility by working. “Ready,” said Geisel.
The SPD politician, who is considered a close confidante of the Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey, is now at the head of the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing. At the time of the election, he was Senator for the Interior – the Interior Administration is responsible for the elections.
CDU General Secretary Stefan Evers, who last loudly formulated the demand for Geisel’s resignation on Wednesday, called Geisel’s refusal indecent. Geisel said to Evers: “I can feel that every buttonhole speaks a certain joy that Berlin is now in such a situation because they intend to make political capital out of it.”
“In the past year I have apologized to the people of Berlin on various occasions because this is an unprecedented event that is likely to jeopardize trust in democracy,” said Geisel about the numerous mishaps in the elections to the House of Representatives and the district parliaments in September 2021.
“But it’s also true that it’s not a question that depends on a single person.” In the discussion about it, it became clear that the legal requirements in Berlin were obviously not sufficient to handle such a complex election, Geisel argued in the state parliament. This is a question of the interaction between the Senate and the district, but above all the interaction between the state returning officer and the district returning officer. Geisel turned to his critics: Their hope of unloading the blame on one person, on him, does not work.
Geisel said that in retrospect, it might have been better to separate the Bundestag and House of Representatives elections to reduce complexity. But then the question would have arisen as to whether it would have been possible to summon 37,000 election workers over two weekends. “You’re always smarter at this point afterwards.”