By Hildburg Bruns and Danilo Gladow
Post-election thriller in Lichtenberg! When recounting, there is suddenly a stalemate between the CDU and the left.
That’s really never happened before: the lot decides on a seat in the Berlin Parliament! And that has unexpected consequences.
First breakdown election, now gambling: Depending on whether the CDU or the left wins this grip on the raffle drum, the House of Representatives could shrink by four to 155 MPs. SPD, Greens, AfD would each lose a representative.
District returning officer Axel Hunger (56) takes responsibility for the letter mishap Photo: Jörg Carstensen/dpa
The trigger for the post-election thriller in Lichtenberg is a yellow box with 466 red envelopes. Due to a transport breakdown, it was only delivered to the electoral office on Monday – but the voters had handed in the letters to the town hall in good time, so it had to be counted.
In the Citizens’ Registration Office (Erwin-Egon-Kisch-Straße), nine volunteers sorted slips of paper from five constituencies on Wednesday.
Counting on Wednesday in the Citizens’ Registration Office in Lichtenberg. As the distribution of seats wobbles, the nationwide gap between the Greens and the SPD only widens from 105 to 113 votes in favor of the Giffey party Photo: Sven Darmer
► Surprise at Lichtenberg 3 (Fennpfuhl, Landsberger Allee, Friedrichsfelde-Nord), where manager Dennis Haustein (32, CDU) with 4218 votes so far is just ahead of left-wing politician Claudia Engelmann (43). She catches up by counting (+ 35 votes), he only gets plus 25 votes. PATT!
► In the event of a tie, the Berlin electoral law says: The district returning officer must draw the lot (WahlG BE § 16). “We’ve never had a situation like this, we tend to have two little beads that we pull out of a drum,” said Deputy Head of Office Thomas Zeidler.
“It’s unworthy of a democracy,” says CDU member Haustein, whose seat that was believed to be secure is now shaking. Sebastian Schlüsselburg (40), a legal expert on the left, also calls for the constituency to be recounted: “The lot can only be the ultima ratio.”
All logs will now be viewed by Monday – and counted if there are any discrepancies. Should the stalemate remain, the draw will be made after 3 p.m. Should the CDU lose, three so-called compensatory mandates will also be lost: for SPD (Michael Biel), Greens (Ario Mirzaie), AfD (Robert Eschricht).
There was another election glitch in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg: When entering the votes, one slipped by one line. Now the Greens have 181 more votes, the Left 178 less. The corrections do not affect the BVV seats.