Hamburg election: SPD before Greens, CDU at all-time low, AfD below five percent

SPD and Greens have won a clear election in Hamburg and can thus continue the last red-green coalition in the federal and state governments. In the mayoral election in the city-state, Mayor Peter Tschentscher’s SPD landed well ahead of the green government partner. In spite of losses, she thus broke away from the party’s negative trend of several years in the federal government. The CDU slipped to its nationwide worst result in state elections in almost 70 years. Surprisingly, the AfD, which was recently successful in all federal states, had to worry about remaining in the citizenship – as did the FDP. The vote in the Hanseatic city is currently the only state election this year.

According to an initial projection by the ARD, the Social Democrats have 37.6 percent of the vote. The Greens can therefore more than double their result to 25.4 percent. Red-green can continue to govern. The CDU plunges to 11.4 percent, which is its nationwide worst state election result in almost 70 years. The AfD must fear 4.7 percent, the FDP 5.0 percent, about re-entering citizenship.

The state parliament has 121 seats. The number can rise due to overhang and equalization mandates as well as successful individual applicants. The forecasts showed the following distribution of seats: SPD 51 (2015: 58), Greens 35 (15), CDU 15 to 16 (20), Left 12 to 13 (11) and FDP 7 (9).

The most likely form of government is the continuation of the red-green coalition that has existed since 2015 – both Tschentscher and his previous deputy Fegebank had described this as obvious. The Greens had long hoped to become the strongest force themselves and to make Fegebank the head of government. In addition to red-green, a coalition of the SPD and CDU would also be mathematically possible, but politically this is unlikely.

It was the first choice for Tschentscher. He had taken over the mayor post in 2018 from Olaf Scholz, who was then head of the Federal Ministry of Finance.

In the election campaign, the SPD in the economic metropolis had tried hard to detach itself from the negative trend of the federal party. The two new party leaders Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans were not invited to appear. Nevertheless, the Hamburg result gives the duo, which tries to draw everyone’s attention to the situation of the CDU, some relief.

Campaign conclusion canceled due to Hanau

Christian Democrats and the FDP have been under great pressure since the government crisis in Thuringia. The election of the FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich with votes from the CDU and AfD could have harmed both parties. CDU chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer had announced her withdrawal a few days ago as a result of the Erfurt crisis. The historically poor result of the Hamburg State Association is likely to be limited in its effects on federal policy.

Tschentscher had a massive focus on climate protection in the election campaign, which is traditionally more associated with the Greens: “It won’t get greener” was one of his slogans. In addition, the issues of rents and transport dominated the campaign for a long time.

In the last few meters, an actually ancient story made waves. Media had reported allegedly unclaimed tax reclaims against the Warburg Bank suspected of being a cum-ex scandal. Mayor Tschentscher rejected the allegation of political interference.

Several parties canceled their campaign closing events after the Hanau attack on Wednesday evening.

Personal proportional voting rights

In the night to Monday, only one result should be announced for the expected distribution of the 121 seats between the parties. How the votes are distributed among the individual list candidates will only become apparent if the counting continues on Monday. Only then is it certain whether the 121 seats will remain or whether there will be overhang and compensation mandates. The reason for this is the complicated electoral system, in which each voter can distribute five votes each between the national and the constituency list.

Since 2011, Hamburg has had a personalized proportional representation system, which means that voters have twice five votes, which they can distribute as desired to the parties and applicants on the state list and the constituency lists. The number of invalid votes in the first election according to this system had risen from just under 1 percent (2008) to 3.0. In the 2015 election, 2.8 percent of the votes were invalid. The current right to vote gives voters more options, but the higher rate of invalidity is striking, said state returning officer Oliver Rudolf.

Citizens can Counting live on the Internet track, but also watch directly in their polling station.

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