BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats suffered a heavy setback in a regional poll in Berlin on Sunday, falling behind the opposition conservatives in the capital for the first time in over two decades.
While the Berlin vote turned on local issues, the disappointing loss comes as Scholz faces widespread criticism for his hesitant military support for Ukraine in the wake of the Russian invasion last year.
In a court-ordered rerun of the election in 2021, the chancellor’s party slipped to their worst postwar result in the capital, where they have held the mayor’s office since 2001.
The conservative CDU, in opposition in the city and in the federal parliament, surged to around 28 percent, up from 18 percent.
Berlin, one of the country’s 16 federal states, was ordered by courts to return to the ballot boxes after the 2021 election was found not to meet basic democratic standards amid widespread voting issues.
Coalition trouble
The outcome of the rerun puts a question mark over the continuation of the coalition between the Social Democrats, Greens and far-left Linke party.
“If we have an opportunity for an SPD-led government, then we will try to organise a stable majority for it,” incumbent Social Democrat Mayor Franziska Giffey told ZDF after the first estimates.
But early figures suggested her junior coalition partner the Greens could finish ahead of the Social Democrats with around 18.5 percent of the vote. The Linke party’s share of the vote was meanwhile estimated at around 13 percent.
