Like a small Berlin, only much more left

Things are not going so badly for Frank Imhoff. The new large poster, which shows the top candidate of the Bremen CDU for the state elections together with his young co-candidate Wiebke Winter, was delivered fairly punctually on this Monday morning, despite the ice and snow.

The survey results, as has already been shown in the past week, are better than expected for the Union. With 27 percent, the CDU is only a hair's breadth behind the SPD with 28 percent. The Berlin elections, the success of long-underestimated party friend Kai Wegner, also provide additional optimism.

"We can do it," says Frank Imhoff, meaning nothing less than the virtually impossible. A change of power in Bremen, the first ever since the Second World War. Imhoff - currently President of the Bremen Parliament and his main job, indeed, a dairy farmer with 110 cows on his farm in the rural district of Strom - would have been the mayor since 1945, after eight Social Democrats, the first Christian Democrat. The upcoming ten campaign weeks will not be easy for the 54-year-old – on the contrary.

On the one hand, this is due to the fact that Bremen is not only a difficult place for the Christian Democrats, as can be seen from the results of the citizenship elections so far. Left-wing parties, left-wing attitudes structurally have a majority on the Weser - despite all the problems that the city is pushing ahead with its deficits, especially in the areas of finance, schools and internal security. Clan crime, below-average results in nationwide educational comparisons and debt budgets are almost as much a part of Bremen as the local town musicians.

Bremen is a bit like Berlin, only much smaller. And, to the constant chagrin of the Union, a bit left. Red-Green-Red currently has a whopping majority of 49 of the 84 seats in the parliament, despite a minus record for the SPD in the election four years ago.

On the other hand, and this also makes Imhoff's project challenging, the Social Democrats in this election campaign, unlike in the 2019 state elections, have a top candidate who is well received by the people of Bremen. Around 70 of those surveyed in the smallest federal state expressed their satisfaction with the work of SPD Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte.

Among the currently incumbent Prime Ministers nationwide, only Schleswig-Holstein's Prime Minister Daniel Günther (CDU) has a better value. For comparison: In Berlin, the Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) won the repeat election to the House of Representatives with just 38 percent approval.

Almost three weeks after the repeat election in Berlin, everything points to upcoming coalition negotiations between the CDU and SPD. Should there be a GroKo, Franziska Giffey would lose her position as governing mayor.

Source: WORLD

On the one hand, Bovenschulte’s clear bonus in office is fed by the Corona period, in which Bremen reacted comparatively quickly and, as it only turned out later, appropriately. Masks, which is just one example, were quickly and easily distributed free of charge to people who were particularly at risk. Schools and day-care centers, which also proved to be an appropriate decision in retrospect, were kept open for as long as possible.

A decision that Bovenschulte had in mind above all those districts in which the majority of residents live in cramped conditions and without constant access to gardens, video conferences and learning software. In any case, the head of the Senate, who replaced his unfortunate predecessor Carsten Sieling (SPD) immediately after the 2019 election, did not make any major mistakes during his term of office, which was shaped by the pandemic.

"Bovi", as he is called not only by the tabloid press on the Weser, is well received in Bremen. Dozens of election events with headings such as "Bovi rocks", "Beat Bovi" and "Bovi-Power" will underline this advantage of the music-loving incumbent - Bovenschulte was a member of a punk band when he was younger - in the coming weeks.

In short, if Frank Imhoff actually managed to take the keys to Bremen City Hall from Bovenschulte on May 14, it would be a much bigger sensation than Kai Wegner's election victory in Berlin.

It is because of this constellation - but possibly also because your own party did not initially trust Imhoff's appeal - that the Union has put a co-candidate at its top man's side: Wiebke Winter, 26 years old, youngest member of the Federal executive of the CDU and co-founder of the climate union, should act in the election campaign alongside the friendly and settled Imhoff as a co-lead candidate and encourage as many young people as possible to vote for the CDU.

It fits with this personality that the party on the Weser wants to adopt a government program on Thursday that, in addition to Christian Democratic standards in the areas of education, economic and security policy, also contains numerous points that one might have expected from the green competition .

Bremen's CDU wants to score points in the election campaign, among other things, with a "support program for cargo bikes", with the "equal representation of managers in the public sector" and the comprehensive expansion of local public transport. In any case, there would be just as much overlap in content for a coalition with the Greens as there would be similarities with the Social Democrats.

The fact that top candidate Imhoff gets along personally with Bovenschulte as well as with the Greens front woman and acting Senator for Transport Maike Schäfer will do the rest to ensure that the Bremen election campaign will not take place below the political waistline. Imhoff avoids a coalition statement in one direction or the other.

Bremen, which distinguishes the Hanseatic city from the capital, is a community that needs more harmony. The local Christian Democrats are convinced that a polarizing election campaign would not go down particularly well on the Weser. An election campaign appearance by the rhetorically sharp party chairman Friedrich Merz is currently not planned. Instead, Prime Ministers Hendrik Wüst and Daniel Günther, who both lead black-green alliances, are to come to support Frank Imhoff.

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