Berlin The CDU politician Kai Wegner was elected the new Governing Mayor of Berlin in the third ballot. 86 MPs voted for Wegner, 70 against him, and three abstained. Wegner accepted the election and was then sworn in.
The 50-year-old had previously missed the absolute majority required to be elected as the successor to Franziska Giffey (SPD) in the Berlin House of Representatives on Thursday. He received 79 votes in the second ballot and did not achieve the required majority of 80 votes.
In the first ballot, 71 of the 159 members of parliament voted for Wegner. 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.
Before the third ballot, the Council of Elders had to clarify the exact interpretation of the Berlin state constitution. This stipulated that a candidate could be elected in the third ballot with a simple majority. However, it was initially unclear how any abstentions would be dealt with, and the current session was interrupted. A motion to postpone a third ballot had not been approved.
After the secret vote, the role of the AfD parliamentary group is unclear. After the third ballot, she declared that she had voted for Wegner. If that were the case, several members of the coalition would again not have voted for Wegner. Whether the AfD was ultimately decisive for Wegner’s election cannot be verified.
Clash between CDU and SPD
After the two failed attempts, politicians from the CDU and SPD blamed each other. “There are obviously many in the SPD who are using the election of the governing mayor to settle accounts with Franziska Giffey and Raed Saleh,” said Berlin CDU member of the Bundestag Jan-Marco Luczak to the editorial network Germany (RND). “That is politically irresponsible.” The SPD continues to lose credibility, he said, emphasizing: “The CDU faction is united behind Kai Wegner.”
The Berlin SPD MP Orkan Özdemir told the dpa: “I am very sure that it is from the ranks of the CDU. They have to close their ranks now. (…) I now hope that Mr. Wegner gets his people in line.” This is necessary to prevent another election to the House of Representatives in Berlin. Two “counterparts” who wanted to vote against Wegner were known to the SPD, Özdemir admitted. But there are no more.
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