The signs are black and red: the Berlin CDU is apparently aiming for a joint government with the SPD after the House of Representatives election. This was reported by “Spiegel” and “Tagesspiegel” on Wednesday. Accordingly, the Christian Democrats, who won by a large margin in the repeat election in the federal capital, want to enter into coalition negotiations with the Social Democrats.
On Wednesday evening, SPD board member Kevin Hönicke announced on Twitter: The SPD in Berlin wants to start coalition negotiations with the election winner, the CDU. According to party circles, CDU top candidate Kai Wegner is also proposing an alliance with the SPD, and the CDU state executive wants to make a decision on Thursday.
The CDU’s exploratory team wants to make a corresponding recommendation to the state executive, the “Tagesspiegel” reported. Officially, the situation should actually only be discussed on Thursday in the CDU state board.
It had previously become known that the SPD state leadership also tended towards coalition negotiations with the CDU. According to media reports, the governing mayor and state party leader Franziska Giffey favors this junior role and would give up her position at the head of government for it. It is conceivable that she will take on a Senate post in a black-red coalition. There is speculation about a kind of “super ministry” with particular powers. It is not clear whether the state board of the Social Democrats will take part.
A black-green two-party coalition is also possible – or the continuation of the previous tripartite alliance of SPD, Greens and Left, which was punished in the election. Both options now seem increasingly unrealistic.
In the repeat election, the SPD only landed a hair’s breadth ahead of the Greens and a clear distance behind the CDU. The left wants to deal with the coalition issue at a party conference on Friday. The state board has already spoken out in favor of red-green-red. The Greens have announced a small party conference for next Tuesday, but a coalition recommendation is expected for this week.
Giffey’s declared election goal was to make the SPD the strongest party. She failed at that. She then declared that she would not stick to her position as head of government. But there are many voices in favor of continuing the old coalition – with an SPD head of government. The Jusos, for example, firmly reject a coalition with the CDU. Others in the SPD are calling for new approaches after the election debacle.
The election winner CDU held three exploratory talks lasting several hours with both the SPD and the Greens. According to the fact-finding teams, it was possible to find solutions to disputed issues in both cases. After that, CDU country chief Kai Wegner did not indicate with whom he would prefer to govern. During the election campaign, the CDU repeatedly attacked the Greens, for example on transport policy issues.
The Green Senator for the Environment, Bettina Jarasch, said as the top candidate in the election campaign that her goal was to continue the previous coalition under Green leadership. However, she did not succeed in making the Greens the strongest party on her second attempt either. In terms of content, the Greens and CDU are further apart than the SPD and Christian Democrats.
The state executive of the left wants to recommend the state party conference to start coalition negotiations with the SPD and the Greens. For the left, there is only one way of participating in government. State chairwoman Katina Schubert and other leftists warned that a black-red coalition threatened the city with a social rollback.
