Berlin’s new Mayor is Kai Wegner. What’s about to change?

He will be Berlin’s first CDU mayor since the turn of the century

Today, Berlin’s new Mayor Kai Wegner will start his office term after the city had to re-do local elections in February. Originally the local election was held in September of 2021, however, the Berlin constitutional court mandated a re-run due to irregularities in the voting process.

How to repeat an election?

The original election produced the Red-Green-Red coalition, led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and supported by the Greens and Die Linke (The Left), featuring now ex-Mayor Franziska Giffey. However, the repeat election saw the SPD’s voter share drop, while the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Greens saw growth.

Importantly, the SPD could have continued governing in the same coalition, although they would have had to share power with the Greens, as both parties won 18% of the vote. However, the Social Democrats opted to change up the governing model and became the junior partner in a coalition with the CDU, ending a 22-year streak of SPD mayors for Berlin.

Moving fast

Kai Wegner will be the new mayor of Berlin and his platform was centred around police reform as well offering equal attention to the city’s outer districts, those outside the S-Bahn ring, as the inner city. Importantly, these issues came to the forefront through the New Year's Eve Riots as well as the Red-Green-Red coalition pushing for perceived anti-car legislation.  

Yet, the CDU will not have enough time to act on its entire agenda, including housing targets and proposed rail extensions to outer districts. This is because this government will have to work within the ongoing legislation period, which started in 2021.

Kai Wegner’s Berlin Senate will not have the benefit of a 100-day grace period and will have to move on the coalition agenda within the next 3 and a half years.

The new coalition partners have agreed on a climate protection special fund worth 10 billion euros, a large housing construction and buyback program, and tougher measures in security policy.