Berlin According to an official extrapolation, the previous governing party SPD won the general election in Bremen with 29.9 percent. The second strongest force was the CDU with 25.7 percent, as the state election management announced early Monday. According to this information, the co-governing Greens received 11.7 percent of the votes, the third coalition partner, the Left Party, achieved 11.2 percent. The right-wing populist regional party Bürger in Wut (BiW) achieved 9.6 percent and is moving into parliament for the first time in a fraction. The FDP received 5.2 percent of the votes. The AfD was not allowed to vote because of a formal error.
The extrapolation based on the votes counted up to 12:30 a.m. is representative and the last one published on Monday night said a spokeswoman for the state election authority. The extrapolations should continue on Monday morning from 10.30 a.m.
“What a day, what a result,” said incumbent Andreas Bovenschulte on Sunday evening. Bovenschulte governs in Bremen in a red-red-green coalition, for which there is still a majority – despite significant losses by the Greens. Traditionally, the party is rather strong in Germany’s smallest federal state and has consistently been involved in the state government in alliance with the SPD since 2007.
Due to the complicated Bremen electoral system, the provisional official final result is not expected until Wednesday. Bremen and Bremerhaven are considered separate elective areas, each with its own five percent hurdle. A party that jumps the hurdle in an electoral area is represented in the citizenship.
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After a series of state election successes, the result is unlikely to please the federal Greens in particular. After all, it wasn’t just Bremen-specific issues that brought citizens to the ballot box on Sunday.
The Greens are criticized both for the debates about the controversial draft law on switching to heating with non-fossil energy and for recent allegations of alleged nepotism in Robert Habeck’s Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Party leader Omid Nouripour called the result on Sunday evening “disappointing”. The Greens politician Anton Hofreiter made a similar statement. “We did not succeed in addressing the general public and mobilizing beyond our core constituency,” he told the Handelsblatt. “There was a lack of tailwind from Berlin in every respect.”
The Greens must succeed in explaining better when it comes to climate protection. The party did not succeed sufficiently. “And we have to be careful that our right policy doesn’t get lost,” he said.
The Bremen election should keep the Greens busy for the next few days
This is also reflected in the polls of Habeck, who is more unpopular than ever during his tenure. Only 30 percent were satisfied with the minister’s work in the “ARD Deutschlandtrend”. In January it was still 44 percent – and Habeck behind Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (also Greens) the second most popular politician in the republic.
But the Greens’ top candidate Maike Schaefer was also held responsible for the result. According to ARD, more than 50 percent of the Greens voters were not satisfied with the politician, who is also a transport senator and deputy mayor. There will be consequences, said Schaefer on Sunday evening, but did not want to comment on a possible resignation. She said she wanted to support a continuation of the governing coalition of SPD, Greens and Left.
Compared to 2019, the Greens lost in the attribution of competence, especially when it came to climate protection and transport policy. Most recently, Schaefer abolished the so-called roll button, which allowed drivers to park for 20 minutes in the city center free of charge. Hofreiter called this decision “not wise”.
“Of course we have a great interest in continuing to implement our green content in a government alliance,” said Maike Schaefer.
(Photo: Reuters)
Despite these Bremen-specific issues, the election result should also concern the Greens leadership in the federal government in the coming days and weeks. The party is threatened with a fierce debate about mistakes in recent weeks, which should also further burden the traffic light coalition in the federal government.
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According to the political scientist Thomas Poguntke, the party must now draw the right conclusions and allow criticism. “Apparently voters are punished for setting maximum targets, although their implementation is questionable,” he told the Handelsblatt.
Pragmatism helped the SPD
He cited the heating law as an example. “Too expensive, no skilled workers, open financing – these criticisms from associations initially fell on deaf ears with the Greens,” he said. “That probably has something to do with the fact that politics is essentially made by networks from our own environment.”
The party must therefore be open to other opinions and other interests. “It has to slow down climate policy projects and communicate better,” says Poguntke. Climate protection without the support of the population cannot last long.
>> Read more: Greens under pressure: Bremen election becomes a mood test for the party
The fact that the SPD has recently positioned itself more pragmatically than the Greens on these issues could have helped it in the election on Sunday. The result should be seen as confirmation in the Chancellery – especially since the Social Democrats still have to cope with the crash in the state elections in Berlin.
In any case, SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert was very satisfied with his party’s expected victory. “We are extremely proud of the SPD in Bremen and Bremerhaven,” said Kühnert after the first forecasts. There is no need to be ashamed of Bovenschulte’s strong “personal bonus”, which embodies the issues for which the SPD has been there for over seven decades.
Above all, the incumbent was able to score with his popularity. According to ARD, 64 percent of Bremen residents stated that they were satisfied with Bovenschulte’s political work.
The FDP also looked spellbound to Bremen. The Liberals have had a series of defeats in the federal states since the 2021 federal elections: twice kicked out of parliament, once missing entry, twice losing a lot of votes. This has greatly stimulated the mood in the Berlin traffic light coalition.
Both FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai and FDP Federal Deputy Kubicki were satisfied with the expected result in Bremen.
(Photo: IMAGO/Christian Spicker)
Because as a result, the Free Democrats looked more and more for profiling and differentiation from their coalition partners in the federal government, first in the dispute over the shutdown of the last nuclear power plants, then in transport and also in budget and tax policy.
A tight race between incumbent Bovenschulte and his CDU challenger Imhoff was expected in advance. Bovenschulte has been the mayor and president of the Senate in Bremen for four years.
After an SPD election defeat in 2019, he left the coalition negotiations with the Greens and Left Party to his predecessor, Carsten Sieling, and then took over the top office. The doctor of law, born in Hildesheim in 1965, was also chairman of the SPD in Bremen from 2010 to 2013; he is considered a party leftist.
During the election campaign, he emphasized above all his office bonus as mayor. The CDU, in turn, held the SPD against the poor situation in Bremen’s schools, which often lag behind in educational comparisons.
“We missed our election goal – we want to be the strongest party -” said the politician at the CDU election party on Sunday in Bremen.
(Photo: dpa)
Challenger Imhoff is an exception in the Hanseatic city with its tradition of seafarers and merchants. He was satisfied with the performance of his party on Sunday evening. In theory, there would be a majority for a grand coalition of SPD and CDU. Incumbent Bovenschulte has so far left open who he wants to form a coalition with.
The 54-year-old Imhoff is a trained farmer and runs a farm with his family in the fifth generation. He has been a member of the Bremen Parliament since 1999. He was Vice President there and in 2019 became the first representative of the CDU to take over the office of President. Imhoff advocated a CDU as a modern big city party that takes care of education, integration and climate protection.
The top candidates in the election in Bremen
A special feature of the Bremen election was that the AfD had blocked participation with internal disputes. However, the polls of the right-wing populist voters’ association Bürger in Wut (BiW) have risen. In the run-up to the elections, the opinion research institute Forsa analyzed that many AfD voters wanted to vote for BiW.
In Bremen and Bremerhaven, more than 450,000 voters were called upon to re-elect the state parliament, the Bremen Parliament. During the election campaign, the two-city state focused very much on itself.
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The country is full of contradictions. The ports, the world’s second largest Mercedes factory and companies from the aerospace industry make Bremen a strong business location. At the same time, unemployment is high and many people are dependent on social assistance. The Bremen school system usually occupies the bottom places in studies. And the country is in deep debt.
The people of Bremen would like to see improvements – this is also shown by surveys. But in the fundamentally left-wing country, it is difficult to foresee which power constellation could try something new.
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