The chaos surrounding the elections in Berlin in September 2021 was a tragedy. Now, for the city’s sake, one can only hope that the repeat election doesn’t escalate into an even worse tragedy.
The election process for the February 12 election will begin early next week. The election notifications will be sent, postal voting documents can be requested. From 8 a.m. on Monday morning, voters can come directly to the district postal voting office and tick the box for the House of Representatives and the district assembly; extra voting booths are available for this purpose. The procedure has been practiced for many elections.
But the repeat election is not a normal election. Anyone casting their vote now should be aware that this election may not be legitimate either. It is subject to a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court after 40 politicians lodged an appeal against the judgment of the Berlin Constitutional Court. A bizarre situation.
One does not want to imagine what would happen if the judges in Karlsruhe should overturn the election. That’s not out of the question. The Senate responsible did not immediately declare itself incompetent, as was probably hoped, but set a deadline for the politicians concerned to comment.
The risk of another election debacle is high. Could it have been avoided? Probably. The Berlin judges could have presented the case directly in Karlsruhe, and the red-green-red Senate could have appealed to the Supreme Court after the Berlin verdict. That would have been clearer.
It had to be expected that individual politicians would take this path. The state government was warned. Before the Berlin verdict, the interior administration had recommended in a statement that the decision be presented in Karlsruhe.
Sigrid Kneist is an editor in the Berlin editorial office and has already observed what is happening around the elections on many election Sundays.
Now it’s just a matter of concern that Karlsruhe sees things the same way as the Berlin constitutional guardians, so that an election doesn’t start in vain on Monday.
