In the end, the Berliners vote left-green again

The Constitutional Court in Berlin has spoken: The election to the House of Representatives in autumn last year, which was marked by breakdowns, must be repeated. This judgment was to be expected and yet comes at the right time. The maneuvering and muddling through of some Berlin local politicians was unbearable. They hoped, with the help of boyish subterfuges (at which Klaus Wowereit had already developed a mastery), to suppress the embarrassment that Berlin inflicted on the rest of the country on that ill-fated September 26, 2021, when the city went to the polls to elect the Bundestag, the House of Representatives and to elect the district parliaments; not to mention the referendum on the expropriation of large housing groups.

The audacity with which it was dared not to take the right to vote of the individual citizen as not too important was breathtaking - regardless of how many polling stations voted not at all or far after 6 p.m. or with hastily copied ballot papers. Now the election to the House of Representatives must be held again within the next 90 days.

It will be interesting to see whether the decision of the Bundestag will stand up after this verdict: With the votes of the SPD, Greens and FDP, the parliamentarians decided that the election did not have to be repeated in its entirety, but only in 431 Berlin electoral districts. Now it is the turn of the Federal Constitutional Court. Whatever his verdict, Berliners will go to the polls again in February.

Anyone who thinks that they will then give the red-green-red government under the Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) a rattling slap in the face because the coalition not only botched up the election process, but has hardly achieved any of the goals it set itself, either knows Berlin not or has eaten too many of his oil-soaked currywurst.

Nothing will change in Berlin, no matter how many times you vote. Berliners – as such, choleric and sensitive, witty and self-pitying, coarse and delicate, angry and yet “hearts juuut” – can still complain so much, at the end of the day he chooses left-green and makes sure that everything stays the same, so that he can keep moaning. By and large, Berliners are narcissistic sodomites: they love their inner weaker self. He doesn't mind if "nothing" changes.