There were state elections in Berlin, the capital of Germany and one of three city states among Germany’s 16 states, last weeekend. The results were somewhat surprising and fairly pleasing, and since I made a couple of maps that I have no place to put, I thought I’d revive our old blog.

Berlin: The Result

Official preliminary end results, courtesy of the Landeswahlleiter:

Social-Democrats (SPD) 28,3% (-2.5%) Christian-Democrats (CDU) 23,4% (+2.1%) Greens 17,6% (+4.5%) Left Party 11,7% (-1.7%) Pirate Party 8,9% (+8.9%) NPD (extreme-right) 2,1% (-0.5%) Free-market liberals (FDP) 1,8% (-5.8%) Animal Protection Party 1,5% (+0.7%) pro-Germany 1,2% (+1.2%) "Freedom" (far-right) 1,0% (+1.0%) The Greys (pensioners) xxx (-3.8%) WASG (left-wing) xxx (-2.9%) Others 2.5% (-1.2%)

In all, 69.3% for left-of-centre parties, 29.7% for the right, and the remainder for hard-to-classify parties like the Alliance for Innovation and Justice (BIG), which received 0.5% but over 10% in some precincts (see below), and appears to be a conservative Muslim party.

Regarding that 69% (oh, juicy) for the left, there’s a certain joy in just exclaiming: “hey, it’s Berlin!”. But even for Berlin this is an unusual result. In 2006 and 2001, the main leftwing parties pooled about 60% of the vote, and in 1999 only some 50%.

Basic backgrounds

The Social-democratic win seems largely due to the personal popularity of Mayor Klaus Wowereit, who was the center of a campaign largely focused on appealing to a kind of feel-good local patriotism. The party’s slogan was “Understanding Berlin,” which was also a bit of a dig against the Greens, who had parachuted one of their national party leaders, Renate Kunast, into the race. Kunast decided to challenge Wowereit at a time when polls suggested a neck-and-neck race between the two parties, with the once-dominant Christian-Democrats fading into third place. But Wowereit seems to have easily won the election campaign, with the last few polls showing his SPD at some 30% of the vote, the CDU at just over 20% and the Greens at just under 20%.

Some pundits have blamed Kunast’s dogged aura of ambition and overly slick campaign, which proved an ill fit for challenging Wowereit, whom the New York Times once described as “charming, sociable and openly gay” and “a cuddly symbol of Berlin’s openness and tolerance”. At least as important, however, is probably how Kunast’s refusal to rule out a coalition government with the right-wing CDU chased parts of the Greens’ traditional alternative-lefty electorate into the arms of the Pirates.

All that said, compared to five years ago the Greens actually won votes, and the SPD lost some. It’s actually the Greens’ best result in unified Berlin yet. It’s just that at a time that the Greens poll at around 20% nationally, getting less than that in the country’s Mecca of alternative culture is distinctly underwhelming.

Despite their rivalry, the SPD and Greens still look likely to form a coalition government now, replacing the previous “red-red” coalition of Social-democrats and Leftists which no longer has a majority. But due to the surprise success of the Pirates, the two parties have ended up with an unexpectedly narrow majority of 76 to 73 seats. The two parties are sharply divided about the extension of a major highway, and theoretically the Social-democrats could still opt for a more ample majority government with the CDU instead. That would leave the entire opposition in the state parliament to the government’s left, however, and would probably be frowned on by the national SPD, which is keen to unambiguously set the course for a red-green government after the next federal elections.

Meanwhile, the digital-rights Pirate Party has easily harvested the most international headlines with its shock success. If you don’t remember, the Pirates drew a fair bit of attention when a Pirate Party received 7% of the Swedish vote in the 2009 European Parliament elections. Subsequent electoral gains have been scarce, however: in the 2010 national elections in Sweden, for example, the Pirate Party received just 0.7% of the vote. Pirate Parties did win a number of municipal council seats in Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain and Switzerland, and the German Pirate Party received 2% of the vote in both the 2009 German national elections and 2011 elections in the states of Baden-Württemberg and Hamburg, campaigning on opposition to new data retention and Internet filtering policies. But this result is easily the Pirate Parties’ biggest coup since they first broke through.

The result of the Left Party – a coalition of East-German ex-communists and West-German disgruntled trade unionists and other leftwingers – is a far cry from the 20+% which the ex-communist PDS received ten years ago. Especially in its core East-Berlin constituency, the party’s support has plummeted: it went from 48% of the East-Berlin vote ten years ago to 23% now. That’s the worst the post-communists have done there in state elections since the unification of Germany. The party’s result is also worse in comparison to 2006 than it may look at first sight: the Left Party has absorbed the WASG since the last elections, so you should really compared its result now to their pooled results five years ago.

The Left’s decline could have various reasons. The WASG voters from 2006 seem to not have made the transition to the Left Party, and the Left lost relatively many voters to the Pirates. Having been Wowereit’s junior government partner for the past ten years, the Leftists have lost much of the critical left-wing profile they combatively honed in the 90s. Or who knows – maybe the eroding numbers for the Left could also be a sign that “Ostalgia,” and the resentment which the city’s “Ossis” feel of the know-it-all yuppies from the Western half of the city in particular, are fading. It’s been a while since the battle over the traffic light men.

The extreme-right NPD, which is opposed to funding for commemorations of fascism, made waves with election posters that subtly featured the party’s leader on a motorbike and the slogan “Giving gas”, which the party’s activists made sure to plaster near synagogues and the like. It lost some support, however, getting 1.6% of the vote in West-Berlin and 2.9% in East-Berlin (down from 4.0%).

For far more interesting information about these elections, check out the Berlin post on the ever reliable World Elections blog.

East vs West

There is still a massive difference between the voting behaviour in West-Berlin and East-Berlin, but it has gotten a lot smaller over the past ten years, thanks to the implosion of the post-communists in East-Berlin.



SPD CDU Greens Left+WASG

/PDS Pirates FDP Others

West Ost West Ost West Ost West Ost West Ost West Ost West Ost 2011 28.0 28.8 29.5 14.2 20.4 13.5 4.3 22.6 8.1 10.1 2.3 1.2 7.4 9.6 2006 31.4 29.8 27.7 11.4 14.8 10.5 6.9 31.4 – – 9.3 4.9 9.9 12.0 2001 33.7 23.2 30.8 12.4 11.1 5.9 6.9 47.6 – – 12.8 5.3 4.7 5.6 1999 25.2 17.8 49.3 26.9 12.1 6.4 4.2 39.5 – – 2.8 1.1 6.4 8.3 1995 25.5 20.2 45.4 23.6 15.0 10.0 2.1 36.3 – – 3.4 1.1 8.6 8.8 1990 29.5 32.1 49.0 25.0 8.2 11.4 1.1 23.6 – – 7.9 5.6 4.3 2.3

Data 1990-2001: http://www.wahlen-berlin.de/historie/Wahlen/Landeswahlleiterbericht_AH2001.pdf Data 2006: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahl_zum_Abgeordnetenhaus_von_Berlin_2006 Data 2011: http://www.wahlen-berlin.de/wahlen/BE2011/Ergebnis/region/Regionen.asp?sel1=1052&sel2=0655

Polls and Pirates

The Pirate party easily outdid all but the very last poll, which was mocked as unrealistic at the time by political enthusiasts. The Greens, the free-market liberals of the FDP and especially the Social-democrats, on the other hand, did worse than the polls had suggested. Some SPD voters may have started taking their party’s victory for granted and not bothered to come out, while a few FDP voters may have switched to the CDU when they saw that their party was unlikely to cross the 5% electoral threshold. (The CDU was the only other party to outperform the polls, if only by a sliver.) It was undoubtedly the Pirates’ success that did the most to keep the other parties’ vote lower than expected though.

An analysis of voter ‘traffic’ by pollster Infratest dimap suggests that the Pirates primarily rallied non-voters (23,000) and voters of other minor parties (22,000). In addition, however, the Pirates won some 17,000 voters from the Greens, some 14,000 from the Social-democrats, and 13,000 from the Left. Those 22,000 voters that the Pirates won from other minor parties are interesting, by the way. The two main minor parties last time that did not take part this year were the Greys – a party for the elderly – and the WASG, which received some 40,000 votes. Since Pirate Party voters are the youngest of any party’s, it’s unlikely that they got much cross-over support from the Greys, so that would suggest that these 22,000 largely come from the WASG. In fact, the Infratest dimap analysis suggests just a net 2,000 voters going from “other parties” in 2006 to the Left Party now.

Argh! The cost of success

The Pirates have won 15 seats – which is good, because they didn’t have more than 15 candidates on their city-wide list. In fact, they will have to forego on taking up a number of seats they won in the local district assemblies, because they didn’t have enough candidates listed.

One poignant case in question is the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, where the Pirates did best. They won nine seats in the district assembly, which is enough to qualify them for one of the five positions (Stadtrat) on the district administration, which apparently are appointed proportionally. But first off, the Pirates had only eight candidates on its district list, so they can not fill one of their seats at all. Moreover, three further Pirates have been elected to both the Berlin city parliament and the F’hain-Kreuzberg district assembly, and they will have to choose which of the two offices to accept. In order to fill all of the Pirates’ 15 seats in the city parliament, all the double-electeds will have to give that job priority to the district-level one. That seems like an easy choice, except that if the three double-electeds from F’hain-Kreuzberg make that choice too, their caucus in the district assembly shrinks to five … and they lose their proportional post on the district administration to the Left Party. The perils of success!

My favorite Berlin neighbourhoods

Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg may be my favourite electoral district of any kind anywhere. It’s got some 268,000 inhabitants, so we’re not just talking about some small niche community. And it is reliably the most leftwing district of its size, I dare guess, in Europe. Among other things, it elected Germany’s first constituency MP for the Greens in 2002 (when the party had previously only MPs elected over party lists), and not just any Green either: Hans-Christian Ströbele.

This time, the results in the district were as follows: Greens 30%; SPD 24%; Pirates 15%; The Left 13%; CDU 8%; and the satirical PARTY party 2% – or a total of 87.1% for left-wing parties…

Who would you have voted?

If you speak German you can check for yourself what you should have voted by using the Wahl-o-Mat for these elections. Predictably, I got the Greens first (74 out of 86) and the Left directly after (71 out of 86), though if I include the various miniscule splinterparties, a couple of extreme-left parties (B, DKP and PSG) manage to squeeze in between the two still.

Hot spots

Various German news sites have published electoral maps showing the winner by city district. There are also great maps showing the winner, and party strengths and weaknesses, by individual city parliament electoral district. I like these ones on the US Election Atlas site (of all places) best.

For the heck of it, however, I downloaded the excel sheet with results by individual precinct (as opposed to just by city district or city assembly electoral district). If you are interested in this level of detail, one site to look up for sure is the election.de section on the Berlin elections. Click on any city assembly electoral district, and you get a map of winners by individual precinct. It’s fairly rare to see electoral maps on that level of detail.

Myself, I was mostly interested in which individual precincts were the best for each of the main parties – hence downloading the excel sheet. I only looked at actual, walk-in polling stations, and not at the processing of votes by mail; and I looked at the party list vote (“Zweitstimme”), in order to reduce the effect of a particularly popular local candidate (the election.de precincts map show the results by “Erststimme,” for individual candidate). The result: this map, which shows the top 5 results of the top 5 parties – though you’ll have to click on it to see it in full size.

Kreuzberg vs Friedrichshain

Interestingly, both the Greens and the Pirates did best in the city district Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, but their bulwarks were on opposite ends of the district.

The Greens received 48% of the “second vote” in a precinct by the Fidicinstrasse, in South-West Kreuzberg. Four of the party’s top 5 results are in that part of Kreuzberg, in fact; and a full eight of its top 10 precinct were in Kreuzberg overall.

received 48% of the “second vote” in a precinct by the Fidicinstrasse, in South-West Kreuzberg. Four of the party’s top 5 results are in that part of Kreuzberg, in fact; and a full eight of its top 10 precinct were in Kreuzberg overall. The Pirates received 26% of the vote in a precinct covering the few blocks around the Boxhagenerplatz, in the heart of Friedrichshain. (I think I was at a festival in the little park there once). More strikingly, three of the Pirates’ top five results and all of eight of its top 10 results were in Friedrichshain.

Highrises and suburbs

The Left Party received 43% of the vote in a precinct by the Schottstrasse in the Lichtenberg neighbourhood. All of four of its top 5 precincts were in the city district Lichtenberg, though its sixth-best result, at 41% of the vote, was in a precinct at the beginning of the Karl-Marx-Allee, just off Alexanderplatz. Judging on Google Street View, the party’s top two precincts are located amidst low-rise post-war housing blocks, while its third-best precinct is all major highrises.

received 43% of the vote in a precinct by the Schottstrasse in the Lichtenberg neighbourhood. All of four of its top 5 precincts were in the city district Lichtenberg, though its sixth-best result, at 41% of the vote, was in a precinct at the beginning of the Karl-Marx-Allee, just off Alexanderplatz. Judging on Google Street View, the party’s top two precincts are located amidst low-rise post-war housing blocks, while its third-best precinct is all major highrises. The SPD received 46% of the vote in a precinct among some mid/highrises by the Michelangelostrasse and Gurtelstrasse in upper Prenzlauer Berg / Weissensee. Yes, that’s in former East-Berlin, but the numbers 2 through 12 of the top precincts were all in West-Berlin. SPD precinct #2 is located amidst highrise blocks in Wedding; its precincts #3-4 consist of more highrise blocks, but in the suburb of Spandau. Six of the next nine top SPD results are in Spandau too.

received 46% of the vote in a precinct among some mid/highrises by the Michelangelostrasse and Gurtelstrasse in upper Prenzlauer Berg / Weissensee. Yes, that’s in former East-Berlin, but the numbers 2 through 12 of the top precincts were all in West-Berlin. SPD precinct #2 is located amidst highrise blocks in Wedding; its precincts #3-4 consist of more highrise blocks, but in the suburb of Spandau. Six of the next nine top SPD results are in Spandau too. The CDU received 52% of the vote in a precinct by the Bernadottestrasse in Wilmersdorf. Very leafy: a clearly prosperous area. The party’s top 3 precincts actually covered adjoining ground: each covered bits of Grunewald / Schmargendorf that border the Berliner Forest.

What about the smaller parties (and we can include the FDP under that nomer now)? Let’s include the top 5 precinct results for the NPD and the BIG, which are all over 10%; as well as the one (1) precinct result where the FDP got over 10%:

The only precinct the FDP received more than 10% of the vote in is located in Steglitz-Zehlenforf, bordering the Berliner Forest. Its next four best results were all in Charlottenberg-Wilmersdorf, similarly close to the forest, and two of them were also among the top 5 results for the CDU. Rich people, basically.

received more than 10% of the vote in is located in Steglitz-Zehlenforf, bordering the Berliner Forest. Its next four best results were all in Charlottenberg-Wilmersdorf, similarly close to the forest, and two of them were also among the top 5 results for the CDU. Rich people, basically. The extreme-right NPD received 14% of the vote in a precinct by the Hugelschanze in Spandau Neustadt: an inconspicuous looking couple of streets, judging by Google Street View, fairly green, midrise buildings with a bit of graffiti. That’s in the West, but the party’s runner-up results #2-3 (12-13%) were both in Treptow-Kopenick, and its results #4-5 and #7-10 (10-12%) were all in Marzahn-Hellersdorf, all in the East. Its Treptow-Kopenick bulwarks consist of neatly kept-up post-war mid-rises and highrises, while its two best scores in Marzahn-Hellersdorf are adjoining plots of major highrises on the edge of the city.

On the populist-xenophobic (but not outright fascist) right,

pro-Deutschland received 7% of the vote at a voting station in Marzahn-Hellersdorf, and some 5-6% in a total of around 15 further precincts, two-thirds or so of which were in either Spandau or Marzahn-Hellersdorf.

received 7% of the vote at a voting station in Marzahn-Hellersdorf, and some 5-6% in a total of around 15 further precincts, two-thirds or so of which were in either Spandau or Marzahn-Hellersdorf. FREEDOM received 9% of the vote in a precinct around the Idunastrasse up in Heinersdorf, city district Pankow. It received 8%, 5% and 5% of the vote, respectively, in three adjoining precincts in Heinersdorf, and also 5% at a polling station in Marzahn-Hellersdorf.

Odd one out

The conservative-Muslim BIG party, which is being tied to the Turkish government party AKP and campaigned for migrant rights but also against the alleged promotion of homosexuality in schools, received just tenths of a percentage point on a city-wide level. But it won as much as 10-15% in ten precincts. Eight of them were in the city districts Mitte or Fr’hain-Kreuzberg; it seems to have done well in Wedding in particular. Its best result, however, was in a precinct in Neukolln, around the Heinrich-Schlusnus-Strasse, which in Google Satellite View looks like a 1970s architectural experiment gone horribly wrong.