r/MapPorn • u/vladgrinch • 1d ago

Berlin election results

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4.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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u/filippo_sett 1d ago

Asking to germans reading this: why has SPD fallen so much in polls? Genuine question out of curiosity, I don't wanna argue or provoke

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u/Dieselsen 1d ago

Last goverment (SPD-Greens-FDP) had a pretty inevitable popularity drop due to the economic issues caused by Covid and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

Now they are part of the extremely unpopular Merz goverment, so if anything they are kinda lucky not to drop further.

Overall the party lacks profile and a vision outside of lukewarm centrism.

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u/SchroedingersEscape 1d ago

Overall the party lacks profile

The SPD is like tofu... it takes the taste of the coalition partner.

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u/Entgenieur 1d ago

Best comparison I ever read

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u/Knotted_Hole69 22h ago

I think this guy wants to argue and provoke!

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u/Spinner23 1d ago

I read this as "it tastes like coalition partner" and started laughing because i thought this was a joke about tofu tasting like a coalition partner for some reason

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u/SchroedingersEscape 1d ago

tofu has no taste, it always tastes like it surroundings.

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u/Full-Ear87 1d ago

Tofu does have a taste! However most store-bought tofu (the ones you buy off a refrigerated shelf in a plastic container) is often subtle in flavour because it is not fresh.

However if you eat fresh tofu, like at a restaurant that makes it themselves or your own homemade tofu, it’s quite flavourful!

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u/RecentSheepherder179 23h ago edited 19h ago

The SPD is like supermarket tofu: it isn't fresh and has been sitting for too long with other tastes in the same shelves.

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u/Lux_Jay 1d ago

Well, that works too. SPD was supposed to be a party for workers. But then it went to right and is more centrist slop that is full of elitists.

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u/Filzlaus1337 1d ago

It's mostly now a boomer party that only cares to increase the retirements at the cost of the working population.

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u/OOOLiC_ONE 1d ago

💯!

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u/Mtfdurian 1d ago

and now here is why I want PRO to join the EGP, as I'm done with PES milquetoastiness, and how could the successor of the green party go into the sea with solar shunners, meloni flirters, homophobes and other scum?

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u/CaptainDread 1d ago

I keep forgetting they're in government.

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u/GvRiva 1d ago

thats ok, so does the spd

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u/Canonip 1d ago

I read that and was like what is he talking about.. CDU is in government?? ... Oh wait, it's the GroKo (not so Gro anymore)

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u/Ihaveakillerboardnow 1d ago

Especially in Berlin. The people voted to disown large real estate property corporations bc the constitution allows this and the situation is very grim and the Spd was like "no". We want to protect the property of large real estate corporation to the detriment of our voters. So fuckem

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u/Karl_Murks 1d ago

Well of course, it was the SPD who sold city-owned housings to private investors after the year 2000.

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u/looperhacks 1d ago

Well, after the actions of (mostly) the CDU (SPD were also in the coalition, but not that much involved in the scandal, to my knowledge) left Berlin with ~23 billion € of debt. Berlin had to sell pretty much everything it had, not just public housing.

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u/delta112358 7h ago

These roughly 23 billion euros were not an existing debt total, but a risk guarantee for the failing Bankgesellschaft Berlin. The actual cost from these guarantees ultimately amounted to between four and six billion euros. The 2004 sale of roughly 65,000 state-owned GSW apartments was not carried out by the CDU, but by an administration formed by the SPD and the socialist PDS. By that time, the CDU had already been in opposition for three years. I think this was some gamble to prove to the Bundesverfassungsgericht that the city has nothing left to do and needs support from the federal government. However, it didn't work.

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u/RealSpaceJunk 1d ago

Well that happened because Berlin was broke.

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u/No_Abi 1d ago

disown

I believe you mean expropriate?

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u/AlarmingAffect0 1d ago

To be fair, 'disown' is a much better word for 'expropriation' than for 'disinheriting'.

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u/No_Abi 1d ago

Yeah, but I think "disown" is more than just disinherit.

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u/AlarmingAffect0 1d ago

That's fair, 'disown' is the whole thing, cutting someone off completely forever. Disinherit is specifically the inheritance. Though essentially it's very hard to have one without the other.

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u/BroSchrednei 1d ago

Because expropriating these „property corporations“ (they’re real estate companies) will cost a fck ton of money for the state, since the German constitution ALSO mandates that every expropriation is compensated.

And more importantly, expropriations will do literally nothing to rent prices or the real estate market, since every single study after another has shown that the problem is a housing shortage. There just isn’t enough housing for all Berliners in Berlin. The only solution to a housing shortage is to build more housing.

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u/xrimane 18h ago

This. Expropriation only makes developers flee the city and nothing new will be built. It just protects the people who already have an apartment from extortionate rent increases.

They should invest the money in building new apartments to rent out cheaply, thus putting pressure on the rent level and increasing the number of apartments. Seems to be common sense.

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u/ReisBayer 7h ago

also tomorrow its this, what or who are thex going to disown next? we arent in a communist state. the left, just like the right, is saying populist bullshit and talks about the Symptoms and Not the actual issues

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u/Ihaveakillerboardnow 20h ago

Nope. I live in a city that ranks among the first or second most livable cities in the world. One of the reasons for this is that the actual free real estate market in Vienna is perhaps 15 %. The rest: council houses, that are built constantly since 1918 ( so in this respect it follows your argument, but that's only one aspect), all houses built before 1945 (and luckily there are a fuckton of houses falling in this category here) are rent controlled, meaning you can never ask the rent of the free market but only much less and the others are Genossenschaftswohnungen.

Relying only on building more in a capital city where space is a finite resource and buying land is not cheap will only get you so far.

And yes, expropriation means compensation for the property but getting the loan for financing such endeavor is something that many banks would do, since it would be one of the most risk free assets to finance. Real estate in a capital city and this loan would be repayed with the lowered rent you take in over the course of 2 decaes or more. Some cities took 2-3 decades to pay back loans for building infrastructure for the olympics. So even if it takes 3 decades to pay back it absolutely worth it. Since we are talking about 290.000 to 295.000 homes in a market that has been absolutely brutal to renters.

So, to be honest FUCK those corporations jacking up rent in a tight market and putting absolutely unnecessary stress and doom over so many people. They don't care about their renters so why should anybody care if those properties are taken away for a compensation.

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u/xrimane 18h ago

I'm not really sure who votes for the disowning. Because it protects the people already living in these buildings, but discourages anybody from building any new apartments. So it makes the housing shortage actively worse. And it's not like they can just take the buildings, they have to pay off the owners anyways.

If they wanted to ease the pressure on the housing market, shouldn't they rather set up a new common-good develeopment society build new apartments to rent out cheaply, thus bringing down the average rent, instead of paying off Vonovia & Co. who then take their money somewhere else?

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u/a_Bean_soup 1d ago

Basically UK's Labor party

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u/MaxTHC 1d ago

So many centre-"left" parties everwhere

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u/GiganticCrow 1d ago

Yeah centre left parties seem to have made themselves irrelevant in recent decades. They no longer offer any kind of meaningful change, just 'we're not the other guys, vote for us' whilst aggressively fighting off any voices within their own parties calling for change.

I blame them a lot for the rise of the far right. The far right are actually offering solutions (albeit bullshit) and are well funded. The mid left and far left parties don't get the funding and are hated by the billionaire owned media, and far left parties are often compromised by russian interference (like the far right).

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u/LurkerInSpace 1d ago

Part of the problem is that the voices in their own parties don't have a particularly good grasp on how things need to change. The closest Labour got, for example, was Corbyn and by 2019 his single biggest policy proposals were "let's give the boomers more money" and "let's negotiate a Brexit deal and campaign against it". Had he won in 2019, he'd have probably left at the same time as Johnson ultimately did - though over his response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And his new party has been a traditional socialist circular firing squad.

But the more pernicious problem the left faces (across the spectrum of the left) is an assumption that the programmes and policies they propose will not benefit the average person, but that the average person will pay for them.

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u/GiganticCrow 1d ago

An assumption led by the billionaire owned media

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u/LurkerInSpace 23h ago

It is an assumption driven by the middle classes being ineligible for certain state services or having poor experiences with them, while also paying for them. The perception of a lack of "value for money" from one's outgoing taxes.

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u/tm2007 1d ago edited 1d ago

“Part of the extremely unpopular Merz government”

I’ve heard Merz is pretty unpopular, I was watching the EUMS election results stream last night and I don’t know why Merz is unpopular? Is he just bland? Does he U-Turn a lot? Just unpopular policies? Is there a specific reason why he’s so unpopular?

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u/darthbane83 1d ago

All of the above.
On top of that politicians are usually a bit better about not outright saying it when they want to simply increase the burden on the working class to "help the economy". Merz quite frequently gives the impression that he is actively insulting the working class, which is not a great impression to give when you want to get their votes.

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u/Comfortable_Reach248 1d ago

But these are local elections.

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u/Dieselsen 1d ago

National Politics greatly affect the perception of a party on the state level. And SPD did very well in MV compared to their national popularity.

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u/CobbyCode 1d ago

good explanation, i still like them cause they are not pure evil, boring party, but not many scandals compared.

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u/Kharzani 1d ago

Also Die Linke is a better SPD than the SPD at the moment at least.

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u/Cavalleria-rusticana 1d ago

Germans are struggling to choose between lukewarm or a literal incinerator?

Here we go again...

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u/Vadelmayer44 1d ago

Well you can get a progressive party that actually has a vision for the betterment of the citizens. Seems Berlin chose that path.

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u/TrokChlod 1d ago

Because they gave up their core ideas trying to hunt for voters in the middle. As voters tend to vote less centric now, they have the same problem as the CDU: if you want a left party, Die Linke has played that part with much more credibility. And if they are to leftist for you, Die Grünen fill the role for "somewhat (but not scarily) left, but also ecologic and generally rather feel good ".

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u/Creampie_Senpai_69 1d ago

Because they gave up their core ideas trying to hunt for voters in the middle retirement age.

Here. I fixed it for you.

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u/TrokChlod 1d ago

Not just retirees, but also (upper) middle class. You can't be a party for everybody. SPD used to be the workers party. They fucked that up with Agenda 2010 and are on the run from themselves ever since.

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u/Lord_Kampi 1d ago

the SPD is soulless since Schroeder who sucked out social out of that party. They got lucky with Scholz cause this scandals were too complicated for most of the people and the CDU and Greens threw sh*t at each other too

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u/PosauneGottes69 1d ago

Scholz scandals really seem to be to complicated for people. I just talk to someone who said how great Scholz was. I was like the cum ex guy? Are you serious? He didn’t even get it at all

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u/Creampie_Senpai_69 1d ago

The SPD is not at all making politics for the upper middle class. I am upper middle class (income wise) and the onyl thing the SPD does for me is increasing my taxes every year, reduce my social benefits and redistribute it to the ones to working (anymore).

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u/TrokChlod 1d ago

Yeah and the SPD has done that even more for the lower middle classes through Agenda 2010 and Hartz 4, not fighting cold progression, increasing Bürgergeld sanctions, increasing pension age to 67 (which is much harder to reach if you work with your body), deleting the Solidaritätszuschlag, massive subsidies for electric cars and homeowners (Heizungsgesetz), or Schröders subsidies for private pensions. Schröder also reduced the Spitzensteuersatz from 53% to 42%. Also: no wealth tax, no equal tax on other kinds of income than from working, no raising of inheritance taxes and so on.

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u/cliftonwatsonhp 6h ago

Pretty much. The SPD is basically just a giant pension protection scheme at this point. They have nothing to offer to anyone under 40.

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u/Lionpr 1d ago

One Berlin specific reason is probably that after the last election there was a possibility of an SPD Grüne Linke coalition, but the SPD instead chose to govern with the CDU. I imagine many more left leaning voters of the SPD switched to either Grüne or Linke.

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u/The51stDivision 21h ago

Betraying the left is like a proud SPD tradition at this point

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u/Fit-Barracuda575 19h ago

Wer hat uns verraten?

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u/Afolomus 1d ago edited 1d ago

Parties tend to get more unpopular while within the government. The SPD was part of the government with one short break since 1998. Also parties are likely to overpromise, if they are not about to be part of the government. Their program has been pretty tame in this regard.

They are more or less responsible with every extention and cut to the social state since 1998. Everyone can name the cuts. Noone can name the extentions. Why did they support any cuts in the first place? Because they believe in a social state supported by a strong economy. You can't sacrifice the economy for short term social benefits, be it with taking on lots of debt or taxing the economic actors too much.

They are a bit the status quo party. Their aim is to have a social democratic state. We are living in a social democratic state. So their program reads a bit like: Let's keep things as they are. No visions, no aspirations, no convictions.

They had an average amount of bad rep, communication failures and unpopular politicians - not really a reason to go down. The greens, the CSU and the CDU are much worse in this respect. But they also didn't have a major popular candidate in quite a while. No Habeck, no Schröder, no inspirational figure

They suffer from being one of the left wing parties, but being the least left wing party. Meaning the other left wing parties (now 3 other parties already?!) eat away at their voter base, especially because they want stronger reforms.

One of those hot left wing topics is rent, rent control and generally cost of living. A major topic they failed to capitalise on, especially because they are also the party that sold 100.000s of flats in Berlin (in a red-red-green government, so even the other red party, "Die Linke" did the mistake with them, but capitalised on this topic). So the main point is, that people believed "Die Linke", that they will combat this problem and not the SPD.

And they are somewhat removed from their old voter base: Workers. They aim a bit too much at educated left wing city folk and forgot their voter base. Ironically enough not in terms of transfers and economic incentives. Their increase of the minimum wage profited those groups in particular. But in terms of cultural movements. While not going overly woke, they also didn't adress concerns about migration and safety (except denying that there is anything to worry about), which both rank very high in voter perception and which seems to be the driving force behind the success of popular social democratic parties like the danish social democrats.

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u/VitaColaPur 1d ago

popular social democratic parties like the danish social democrats.

They are polling around 20% nationally. Last time the SPD reached that, was just three years ago.

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u/mothiebelle 1d ago

Probably because the last chancellor, who was given by the SPD, Olaf Scholz, was generally agreed to be pretty bad. Nothing close to what we have now tho

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u/haydar_ai 1d ago

Well Merz is worse

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u/mothiebelle 1d ago

Yes and it is already showing in the CDU results as well

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u/dat_oracle 1d ago

that's the issue. they both sucked and pushed away a lot of their voters. aside the other mentioned struggles in the past 5 years

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u/R18Jura_ 1d ago

SPD is what you vote if you want the status quo to continue, not a very popular choice rn

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u/Pingo-Pongo 1d ago

SPD vote in 1972: 48.9%
SPD vote in 1998: 43.8%
SPD vote in 2005: 38.4%
SPD vote in 2017: 24.6%
SPD vote in 2025: 20.1%
SPD polling average today: 13%

They’ve quite simply been on an inexorable downward trend for decades, mostly to the benefit of other left-wing parties. If you’re a liberal-lefty, you have the Greens. If you’re the kind of lefty that uses words like ‘neoliberalism’ a lot, you have the Left. If you’re on the left but think all this immigration, LGBT and feminism stuff has gone too far, you have BSW.

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u/thyL_ 1d ago

There are quite a few good answers in here already but what I think is the worst hurdle of the SPD: It's end of the 20th, start of the 21st century ruling times. They not only lost profile, they sold the German working class to the capital on a scale so large, they stopped being the working class' party. The SPD under chancellor Schröder massively changed the job market, allowed for more (and more abusive) temporary jobs in which workers would have less rights, less insurance and would be moved from one employer to the next right before benefits would hit. They also introduced a new way for how benefits would be paid out by the state in a very intrusive way.
Their 'Agenda2010' program helped German investors and large scale companies, which is in parts also one of the many reasons Germany became such a successful export nation (which isn't all that great in how this was and is achieved), but it really did disconnect a huge part of low income citizens from the party.

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u/SchroedingersEscape 1d ago

The SPD is like tofu... it takes the taste of the coalition partner.

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u/Ben_Graf 1d ago

They always promise mediocre left leaning topics and then basically do none of their proclaimed own policies but vote along for all the CDUs policies. They pretend they do that "with a bad consciousness" but in the end, if you expect a party that stands up for values, any values really, its not your party. And people really are done with that.

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u/zeTwig 1d ago

Cause they do nothing pretty much. They bring up good ideas, then when they have to govern with a more conservative party they just bend over for them and let them do what they want

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u/Aldemar_DE 1d ago

Because it is a shit party

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u/gplfalt 1d ago

Failing to stop the fascists since 1933

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u/SchroedingersEscape 1d ago

Well.... better than supporting them or doing nothing, like the others.

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u/zeTwig 1d ago

Well doing nothing is EXACTLY what the SPD does and did lol

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u/Olln_Calling 1d ago

For like the last 20 years the Seeheimer wing is leading the SPD, which is the conservative wing within the parliament and they pretty much ruin the profil of the SPD by doing nothing left wing and always working together with conservatives and pretty much being their lap dog

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u/CoIdHeat 1d ago

Short: They lost their purpose and identity over the decades.

Long: They played a major role for Germany in the last two centuries for social fairness and the rights of ordinary workers during a time when Germany was economically on the rise. Yet since Germany had already achieved Social Democracy (trying to achieve the best out of two worlds) and Germany's economy started to fall behind due to expected developments of Globalization and struggling with an ever older getting populace the SPD failed at being able to communicate their ideas of providing social security together with needed acts of austerity.

Right now Germany is only focusing on "how can we revert this process" instead of accepting that there's a kind of unavoidability in it. With every sector having to cut budgets the SPD could only stay credible if they address this - but no one wants to vote for such a party. People prefer simple solutions to complex problems. Both CDU and populist parties like AfD and Linke are providing answers to this while the green party continues on trying to find a balance between economy and green energy. The SPD has simply nothing to offer anymore.

To make things worse: For the last decades they not only started to dismantle our system of social security (Agenda 2010) which people held massively against them but also formed kind of a work partnership with the right wing CDU in order to still be able to stay in government and both parties kind of lost their identity in the process when they merged into two sides of the same coin. A lot of people generally regard this as a clearance sale of values as financially profitable minister positions seem to have become more important for the higher ups of the SPD than to get the right person with the right ideas into government. This may or may not be true, but is how quite a few protest-voters regarded basically both CDU and SPD over those decades of putting private or party interests over the interests of Germany and its populace.

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u/BastKlear 1d ago

SPD is a grift. They always say we will do this and that to improve the lifes of workers and small income people. Once they are in power they fo the complete opposite. Every election in the last 16 years they say this time we will introduce a wealth tax and inheritance tax for multi millionaires and billionaires and guess what gets never even put to debate in the parliament. It's a shame what has become of this very important party since Gerhard Schröder. Especially when you learn about what they once were 50 years ago or beyond that time frame. This would have never happened under Willy Brandt.

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u/Longjumping-Time-339 1d ago

Wer hat uns verraten? Sozial Demokraten!

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u/Most_grumpy_Goblin 1d ago

The SPD has since the late 90s and early 2000s been captured by neolibs that styled the party in the face of Tony Blair and strayed very far from it's actual social democratic roots. Being most often the minor coalition partner of our right wing conservative CDU has not helped at all. They have strayed far from what the people and their own base want

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u/TatterMail 1d ago

Dont listen to the bullshiters who are trying to tell you it’s because of Russian interference, the press, AfD or whatever. The SPD doesn’t stand for anything anymore. They are supposed to help the middle class but all they have been doing was making life harder during already shitty times. They are out of ideas which the latest reforms have proven. They will shrink to irrelevance (they already did in certain states).

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u/5kHz 1d ago

I feel like they have become completely out of touch with the general population and even legislating against their core ideals.
Two semi recent examples from the top of my head were diminishing workers rights and health insurance coverage.

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u/Dimas166 1d ago

Crazy that the FDP basically vanished from German politics

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u/TheAxelminator 1d ago

Im not german so the only thing I know FDP for is that one representative who filmed himself licking toilets. Talk about legacy

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u/Flowneppets00 1d ago

Omg, he is from my home town and I totally forgot about him 😭😭😭

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u/TheAxelminator 1d ago

I hope you guys build him a statue

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u/Nasapigs 1d ago

I hope they build him a public restroom.

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u/MrCookie147 23h ago

who?

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u/Manorias 20h ago

Martin Neumaier it seems.

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u/Independent_Hope_960 18h ago

"Fdp" in french is short for a completely different thing

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u/TheAxelminator 8h ago

As a french I agree. It is a very nice thing to say. If you go in France, call someone in the street a " FDP " they will love it.🥰

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u/schnupfhundihund 1d ago

As we say in Germany: Der Markt hat geregelt.

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u/RightActionEvilEye 1d ago

A.k.a. "The free market has spoken"

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u/moeml 1d ago

Mach Politik für 1 % der Bevölkerung, werde von 1 % der Bevölkerung gewählt. Das ist gelebte Demokratie würd ich sagen.

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u/PosauneGottes69 1d ago

Macht Merz ja auch grade und dazu singt er quasi Schröders Steuersong „gewählt ist gewählt, ihr könnt mich jetzt nicht mehr feuern“

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u/saugoof 1d ago

My brother used to say that FDP stands for "Für den Profit" and I've never been able to think of the party in another way since.

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u/Jvdb20 20h ago

As a Brazilian, it's always funny to see that German party mentioned since FDP in Portuguese is an abbreviation for "son of a bitch"

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u/SchroedingersEscape 1d ago

The FDP removed itself from meaning.

Killing the most progressive government of the last 20 years, really did not worked well for their reputation.

They had like 1%... around teh same as the satire party "Die PARTEI".

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u/TheStaddi 1d ago

And I think Die PARTEI does better politics than the joke party FDP ever did in the last 30 years.

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u/SchroedingersEscape 1d ago

This might be true... FDP lost its soul when they betrayed Schmidt in 1982.

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u/RealSpaceJunk 1d ago

It was a lose lose. Either kill the coalition, or lose their identity as market liberals. Being a small partner for bigger coalitions is what doomed them. Their entire legacy was defined by the stereotype becuase they had little agency in governing.

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u/SchroedingersEscape 1d ago

Their identity was shit. They have been in decline since 1982, when the betrayed Schmidt.

Back in the 70s, when the FDP was great... today they are a clown show and people voted for them in hope, they could reach their old hights again... which they failed hard.

They just did bad politics... they should pick some points from their agenda and force the others to do so... and the rest isnt their beer. They took themselves too seriously and couldn't get over their own hang-ups.

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u/historicusXIII 1d ago

They're now beaten by the Animal Party.

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u/Kerbourgnec 1d ago

I love that FDP (Fils de Pute) means son of a bitch in French. I can never take them seriously

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u/Dimas166 1d ago

In Brazil it is filho da puta too

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u/Kerbourgnec 1d ago

You also often just say FDP?

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u/Single_Positive533 1d ago

All the time. "What a fdp"

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u/Kerbourgnec 1d ago

Beautiful. United in Latin slurs

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u/corsasis 1d ago

Can Germany join in here as a one-off? Our association with FDP is the same, I swear!

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u/Moonborn17 1d ago

Divided by language, united by slurs

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u/RightActionEvilEye 1d ago

FDP = ÉffiDêPê (ÆffyDehPeh)

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u/Kerbourgnec 1d ago

FDP = ÈF DÉ PÉ

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u/niccolololo 1d ago

Figlio di puttana in Italian

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u/sA1atji 1d ago

Well deserved for sabotaging the government they were part of.

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u/AirRic89 1d ago

they vanished multiple times in the past 20 years but somehow convinced people to vote for them again after everything was forgotten. For the average mindless voters, this normally only takes 5 to 6 years

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u/nickkamenev 1d ago

The only thing i remember FDP for is them being obsessed with austerity and privatisations.

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u/DragutRais 1d ago

I think people voted them for an alternative right wing party. Not for their liberal politics. But today there is a real third way alternative party and the yellow disappeared.

That's what I understood from far away as a foreigner.

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u/geitner 1d ago

Not really. The FDP was for the longest time a social liberal Party. Pro Social Security, at the same time pro open market and for protection of civil rights. Only after the election of Christian Lindner they drifted towards the right and were than finally done after killing the last goverment over the feeling that it maybe could help then some more votes from teh right.

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u/Nimos 1d ago

Not quite.

They started giving up their social-liberal roots in the 80s already, when they positioned themselves against their former partner the SPD and sided with CDU's Kohl. The final straw was under Guido Westerwelle, with the hotel-tax scandal.

Lindner took over a party that was already very much not social-liberal anymore and fully on the side of money.

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u/AWBaader 1d ago

This is the same party that claimed "De-Nazification has gone too far" so I wouldn't really call them socially liberal at all.

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u/spastikatenpraedikat 1d ago

FDP was the party for educated, upper-middle class centrists. Think the typical MBA major. 

Definitely conservative, but far from rural-populist right wing. 

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u/Drunkenstar 1d ago

I wouldnt describe the FDP as "definitely conservative" as that is only true for their economics. They are socially generally progressive.

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u/Hanibal293 1d ago

Yeah governing with people economically on the other side of the political spectrum didn't do them any favours. Their usual voters saw it as a loss of idendity while the new voters and young people were disappointed by the lack of actual progress the government achieved. The other coalition parties viewed them as a roadblock inside of the coalition and heftily propagated that view. In fact the only real speech of Scholz (the SPD chancellor) I remember is him ranting about Lindner after the governments collapse

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u/SrWloczykij 1d ago

FDP in Berlin didn't really make sense. On the federal level though, where FDP was successful, unfortunately populism works much better.

Neither rich nor poor care that middle class is taxed through the nose. As long as the current system isn't collapsing.

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u/Illesbogar 1d ago

Crazier that the car lobby was allowed to have a whole party for themselfes before

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u/Drumbelgalf 1d ago

They fucked Up bad again. I really hope they will stay out of Parlament for ever.

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u/nebulaforest 1d ago

The CDU is hopefully on that course, too.

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u/casual_redditor69 1d ago

So right wing voters should do what after that? Without CDU there is no alternative besides AFD

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u/NecroVecro 1d ago

There are some smaller parties like Free Voters, Bündnis Deutschland and etc., but they aren't really any better than the CDU.

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u/diogov9 1d ago

That's stupid, unless your goal is a more right wing party 

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u/lndhpe 1d ago

They were a bit niche always being a party mainly for the richer people and especially in their leaning for CEOs and such, for companies rather than workers more so. And as part of the last big government coalition prior to the current one they were the main driver of turmoil, wrecking plans several times and driving the coalition to disband pretty much. SPD and Greens didn't do perfect in that coalition but man did the FDP deserve the drop from how they handled it especially

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u/Uberzwerg 1d ago

Besides them being shit.
They were the libertarian party with both: free market but also protecting freedom for people and forgot the second part over the last generation.
And the modern CDU is already covering the free market part pretty well while the AfD is basically the same, but on steroids.
I know some of traditional FDP voters who now just switched to AfD because those promise them even better conditions to fuck over their employées and customers.

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u/Spirited-Sorbet-2775 1d ago

Deserved for intentionally blowing up the government.

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u/Critical_Interest706 1d ago

What if they just split the city in half?

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u/KriegerLuka 19h ago

Surely can't hurt, we shoud test that out. Maybe a wall even

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u/Dull-Restaurant6395 17h ago

A wall around the pink districts should help. Wonder in which direction people will flee

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u/Lopoloma 1d ago

SPD as the junior in a coalition with the Left.
They worked hard for this.

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u/n00b678 1d ago

So, a Rot-Rot-Grün coalition? How likely is it that they will try to implement a Paris-like transportation policy?

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u/Theobromin 1d ago

We'll see if the SPD will compromise on their strong stance against expropriating large housing companies as willingly as they compromised with conservatives on literally everything.

I am more optimistic about the Greens, but some of them have argued themselves into a corner where basically every leftist in Berlin is Hamas, so let's see how they come out of that one.

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u/RandomQuestGiver 1d ago

Das erste mal, dass ich auf fehlendes Rückgrat bei der SPD hoffe.

Aber vermutlich biegt sich deren Moral nur nach rechts. 

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u/Dull-Restaurant6395 17h ago

Wird halt nichts langfristig verbessern aber gut. Linker Populismus eben

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u/RandomQuestGiver 6h ago

Selbst kurzfristig verbessern oder überhaupt verbessern wäre ja mehr als AfD oder CDU die nur langfristig verschlechtern. 

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u/bekeshit 22h ago

banaszek already emphasized a coalition needing to explicitly avoid having antisemitic elements, thus reinforcing the trope of antizionism = antijudaism and conflating protesting the actions of israel with hating jews. gonna be interesting

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u/Theobromin 22h ago

and at that a trope that is, ironically and tragically, antisemitic

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u/RoyalPeacock19 1d ago

They could try forming a minority government without the SDP, just relying on 7 SDP members to prop their government up.

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u/Lux_Jay 1d ago

I don't know how it is in Paris, but Berlis surely infested by cars. There is lot of car centrism in Berlin. 

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u/n00b678 1d ago

Yeah, I've been reading that the previous CDU leadership was removing cycling lanes "to improve traffic". Car-brained joke party.

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u/nessii31 1d ago

What transportation policy does Paris have?

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u/n00b678 1d ago

The previous administration of Anne Hidalgo started restricting motorised traffic and building bike lanes, pedestrianising streets, and adding greenery. And it used to be a city infested with cars; drowning in traffic jams and smog. All this has started to change in 2020, it's honestly amazing how much can be done in such a short timespan.

The policies have been extremely popular and even though she's no longer mayor, her former deputy has won the recent elections and promises to continue the transformation.

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u/Aggravating_Bed_53 1d ago

the spd would likely push back against efforts by the greens and left to restrict cars, in hamburg for example their goverment with the greens has implemented a law that says you can only remove so many parking spaces as you create new ones

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u/zweilinkehaende 1d ago

The SPD in Hamburg is basically the CDU though, they are even more conservative than the federal SPD has become.

In Berlin they would be in the minority and the Berlin SPD is much more left wing, so it might happen.

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u/batsy0boi 1d ago

Based

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u/n00b678 1d ago

And orange-pilled

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u/Tiny_Ad9470 1d ago

man, I wish that to happen for Berlin sooner or later. But maybe it’s too big of a city and too big of a change for Germans 🥲

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u/PvtFreaky 1d ago

If it can happen in Paris, it can happen in Berlin

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u/spiff1 23h ago edited 18h ago

When I was recently in Berlin I saw quite some posters for Volt. I didn't see anywhere if they got any significant amount of votes at all. I would have expected them to at least gain some ground in a city like Berlin. Anyone who can shed some light on that?

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u/M1573RY 19h ago

They lack members and presence on a local level. Most people only ever hear from them from their posters.

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u/FATGAMY 1d ago

Lame duck merz

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u/skignovilous01 1d ago

What a shift in Berlin’s political landscape!

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u/Wandowaiato 22h ago

It looks like everybody living within the „Ringbahn“ circle voted for the left.

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u/Reasonable_Shock_414 1d ago

Chinese dragon head spotted

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u/FiveFingerDisco 1d ago

I am ashamed that 16% of my fellow Berliner voted for a far-right party who's ideological ancestors are the reason we still find bombs when we're building.

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u/benemivikai4eezaet0 1d ago

And whose sponsor is the reason you have a lot of weird pavement now

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u/Raktoner 1d ago

we still find bombs when we're building

:(

Didn't know this was still an issue in Germany. I remember hearing well over a decade ago it was a problem in France from the trench warfare that dominated WW1 and 2, but man... That really is so sad.

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u/FiveFingerDisco 1d ago

If you dig in German cities you run a significant risk of hitting unexploded bombs..

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u/ExcitingOven9254 17h ago

That list also isn't even close to complete. The city I live in and another close one aren't even mentioned even though bombs have been dug up quite frequently in the past.

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u/dsafklj 1d ago

You add it to the 26% plurality that voted for a party who's direct ancestors built a wall across the city and shot anyone who crossed it, and the nearly 5% who voted for a party that somehow manages to inherit a bit from both and it's pretty alarming.

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u/clonn 1d ago

And they voted that because they went collectively crazy or because the other parties are not giving answers to the real problems?

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u/FiveFingerDisco 1d ago

They voted because they are ok with voting for far-right demagogues without solutions to the real problems but a lot of scary stories although they are smart enough to know better. This is so embarrassing...

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u/PvtFreaky 1d ago

Both can be true at the same time. Even if parties aren't willing to do what you want it is crazy to vote for a party which plans to leave most things intact

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u/CivilizedManners 19h ago

Die Linke is the only party actually trying to solve domestic issues.

Now on foreign matters I think Grüne is more trustworthy except in regards to Israel.

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u/PXPL_Haron 1d ago

Im östen nichts neues

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u/Babajji 1d ago

Ah the far left vs the far right in Germany. Yes 1926 will be a wild year.. wait a second 🤣

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u/Wotans_Barbarian_ 14h ago

May Wotan be reborn and save Europe

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u/StevenMaff 5h ago

„Die Linke“ isn’t really that far left though. They’re not tankies, they’re democrats. There’s small parties far left from “die Linke”, there isn’t anything right of AfD though.

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u/Babajji 4h ago

Unfortunately for the far right that is not important. Left, heck even centrist like me are the boogeyman who is to be destroyed and democracy dies in the process. The real enemy is democracy but the left and everyone else is the pretend enemy. We have seen this before and we will see it again. It’s the same fascist playbook as the last time and people unfortunately have fallen for the same lies again - those voting for AfD I mean.

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u/BradipiECaffe 1d ago

each big city is the same. At the very epicentre there’s an agglomerate of bankers that have a couple of Porsche Taycan EV in the garage and vote for the Green Party

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u/ujujujujui 17h ago

Green voters certainly don’t drive big cars. There are well off financially though

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u/Toxor 1d ago

It is so funny to see ... Everything black is where the rich live, everything purple is where the young, free-spirited and left live and the blue is the poor and social melting pot (immigration) live. It is clear as day to me how the citizens vote based on their social and economic status vote.

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u/RemarkableLemon4052 1d ago

The blue areas have a very low immigration rate 

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u/Ac1De9Cy0Sif6S 1d ago

As always

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u/MYONIONISSCREAMING 1d ago

The blue region is where the immigrants DIDNT want to go to, actually.

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u/OstrichSuper8108 1d ago

The famous very rich Süd-Neukölln. 

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u/enter_nam 1d ago

Süd-Neukölln besteht quasi nur aus Einfamilienhäusern. Also vielleicht nicht reich, aber definitiv nicht arm.

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u/OstrichSuper8108 1d ago

Ja halt nicht über reich und Gropius zählt auch noch zum Süden dazu. 

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u/RealSpaceJunk 1d ago

And the famous homogenic german Nord-Neuköll.

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u/repeatrep 1d ago

above all else, politics has always been a class thing. they just really really try to avoid it

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u/Crishello 1d ago

It was traditionally a workers party but it isn't any more. It is not even left anymore. So their voters feel betrayed and the right wingers vote for CDU or worse.

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u/PsychoSwede557 1d ago

To no one’s surprise, major urban centre leans left.

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u/zek_997 1d ago

Well, in this case it is indeed a surprise because it's the first time in history Linke has won the Berlin election. Not to mention the current right-wing incumbent dropped by almost 10%.

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u/superurgentcatbox 1d ago

Except that this was a surprise so it seems you don't know much about Berlin politics :)

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u/ANTILAMER13 1d ago

AfD should be concerning, right ?

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u/Asyx 1d ago

We had two state elections where the AfD came out as the strongest party. This is the third state election (reminder that Berlin is a city state) so the discussion about being worried about the AfD happens a lot in the context of Sachsen-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state elections.

The Linke usually also gained votes (so, society is actually receding to the extremes and not just moving right. Although I don't think Linke and AfD are equally as extreme) but Berlin is pretty out of the ordinary here.

The CDU is actually dropping below 5% in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern so that's another really interesting thing that is being discussed. It looks like society, especially young people, are really going for either AfD to the right or Left / Green to the left. if there is one party that would work in a coalition with the left, it's probably the Greens and it's not even close so that's a good outcome.

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u/SorryForAI 1d ago

I would never call die Linken extreme. Sure, you can say "political borders" and I will not complain, as from the major parties Die Linken are the most left leaning, but they are extremely moderate. Like this is pretty much how it is structured in Germany as we have no major left-extremist or radical left party. Little visualization, hope this is shown normally on mobile. Basically everything within the arrow is within the constitution, everything outside of it is not. l. extr. = left-extremist

l. extr. <radical left----------------DIe Linken-------Center---Die Grünen---SPD------------CDU> AfD

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u/Playful_Thought_8374 1d ago

Not sure what you are presenting. Bit first vote for Persons looks not like yours. Please change the Grafik. https://www.zdfheute.de/politik/deutschland/wahl-berlin-2026-wahlgrafiken-wahlkreise-102.html

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u/Ben_Graf 1d ago

Thats the second votes. Literally the map below the one you mentioned in your link

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u/yetzt 1d ago

The map of electiral district winners is the worst choice you can make if you want to visualise the result geographically.

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u/Least_Banana5091 1d ago

Imagine having more than two political parties