Giffey leaves the desire for a coalition before the Berlin election open

Berlin's governing mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) wants to go into the repeat elections to the House of Representatives on February 12 without making a coalition statement. She is campaigning for a strong SPD and not a coalition election campaign, Giffey told RBB television on Tuesday.

The SPD currently governs Berlin in a three-party coalition with the Greens and the Left Party. According to the latest polls, Giffey's Social Democrats only came third in the election, behind the CDU and the Greens.

"If people want Franziska Giffey to do this job with 20 years of experience in the district, in the federal government, in the state, then they have to vote for the SPD, that's the first message," said Giffey on the television show "Your plan for Berlin?” by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg. The former Federal Minister for Family Affairs has led the Berlin state government since 2021, and she is also her party's top candidate for the repeat election.

On Tuesday, the Federal Constitutional Court cleared the way for the February 12 election. The judges in Karlsruhe rejected an urgent application aimed at postponing the election until a fundamental court decision was made. Whether the repetition for all constituencies is constitutional will be further examined by the Federal Constitutional Court in the so-called main proceedings.

On the original election day, September 26, 2021, there were numerous glitches. In November last year, the Berlin Constitutional Court ruled in a sensational judgment that the elections to the House of Representatives and to the twelve district assemblies were invalid and had to be repeated in their entirety - there were simply too many serious electoral errors. On the other hand, more than 40 Berliners, including many politicians, appealed to the Federal Constitutional Court.

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