The Left | Six districts red, four black, one green, one blue

Election workers sort ballot papers for a district council meeting in Berlin-Mitte on Sunday evening. Photo: dpa/Katharina Kausche At the same time as the new House of Representatives, Berliners also elected the capital's twelve district council assemblies (BVV) on Sunday. Calculated for the entire city, the result at the state level hardly differs from that in the districts. The CDU has collapsed, the SPD has lost a lot, the Greens have lost something. In contrast, the AfD made gains and the Left's results literally exploded.

While the Socialists received 25.7 percent of the vote in the House of Representatives election, the average was 24.1 percent in the twelve district council assemblies. At this local level, too, there was a very clear lead over the CDU, which had to be content with 18.2 percent (Greens 17.2 percent, AfD 15.7, SPD 12.2). These are the five parties that are represented in all district parliaments.

However, the results sometimes differ considerably from district to district. The CDU was able to stay ahead in four of six formerly pure West Berlin districts despite losses. In Tempelhof-Schöneberg, however, the Greens were able to move forward because, in contrast to the CDU, they lost comparatively little there. It is also the only district that the Greens were able to win.

In Neukölln, where Ferat Koçak (Left) was able to win a federal constituency for the first time in February 2025 in an area that previously belonged exclusively to western Germany, his party now also won the BVV election. The Socialists also conquered Pankow, Lichtenberg and Treptow-Köpenick in the east. Only in Marzahn-Hellersdorf did the Left Party have to admit defeat to the AfD. The Left also won in the two mixed areas of the capital, namely in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district, which consists of East Berlin's Friedrichshain and West Berlin's Kreuzberg, and in Mitte, which is in the east but was given Tiergarten and Wedding from the west in the 2001 district reform.

After the House of Representatives election in February 2023, the Left lost all of its remaining district mayors. Now she could get more than ever before. Things are looking very good for René Pérez Domínguez in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, for example. When it comes to Jonas Teune, who is slated to become district mayor in Pankow, the question is whether the Greens, for example, can overcome their reservations about him. In April, Teune failed in three rounds of voting in his attempt to be re-elected as a social councilor for a resigned comrade. This was easy to identify as an election campaign maneuver because it was already clear that Teune would become district mayor after the Left won the election in September.

Pankow's town hall boss Cordelia Koch (Greens), who was basically voted out, points to a comparatively very good result for her party. She emphasizes that the election results show that “various constellations are possible in Pankow.” Coalitions cannot be agreed at district level, but so-called counting communities can be agreed upon. Then the party with the best result will not get the district mayor's post - a fate that the AfD will probably suffer in Marzahn-Hellersdorf. The Pankow Greens want to talk to all democratic parties.

Complications in the election of the district mayor are also to be expected in Neukölln despite the Left's election victory. The Left has chosen its previous parliamentary group leader Ahmed Abed as district mayor. But in all attempts to accuse the Berlin left of anti-Semitism, Abed's name was mentioned again and again. He is of Palestinian origin and, as he reported, lost relatives who were buried under the rubble of their homes during the bombing of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli Air Force. When Tzvika Brot, mayor of Bat Yam in Israel and member of the right-wing Likud party, was allowed to speak in Neukölln's town hall in October 2025, Abed called this man a "genocider." Abed was also accused, among other things, of having not only represented the controversial BDS movement to boycott Israeli goods and services as a lawyer, but also of being fully behind it. In Germany, the boycott called for worldwide is considered sensitive because it is reminiscent of the Nazi slogan "Don't buy from the Jew."

“The CDU and AfD are very much against my candidacy,” Ahmed Abed told the “nd” on Monday. "We have overlaps with the SPD and the Greens." However, Abed believes, not without reason, "that the Greens and the SPD don't like electing me." But those eligible to vote in Neukölln have made their decision. “With our very strong result, the other parties cannot afford not to vote for me,” says Abed.

Gregor Gysi (Left) won the Treptow-Köpenick federal constituency six times in a row starting in 2005. However, his party has never been able to appoint the district mayor in this district since 1990. The post went exclusively to Social Democrats. Now that could change.

After the five major parties, the BSW performed best on a Berlin scale. It achieved an average of 4.5 percent in the BVV elections. Unlike the House of Representatives election, there is no hurdle of five percent in the BVV elections. Three percent is enough to move into a district parliament. In Steglitz-Zehlendorf the BSW narrowly failed with 2.9 percent, but it worked in all other districts. So far, the Wagenknecht party had a total of ten district councilors in seven districts who had defected from the Left, the FDP, the Greens or the Animal Welfare Party. Now she has 26 regularly won mandates.

“A few weeks ago I wouldn’t have expected that we would be able to do this,” admitted BSW state chairman Alexander King on Monday. If it had also worked in Steglitz-Zehlendorf, “it would have been really sensational.” The result of the BVV elections provides some consolation for the fact that the Wagenknecht party missed out on entering the House of Representatives with 4.7 percent. Sevim Dağdelen, formerly a member of the Bundestag for the Left, is now a BSW district representative in Mitte. 26 mandates in the districts, this is “better than nothing,” even if this success obviously cannot replace a parliamentary group in the House of Representatives, says King.

The liberal Volt party – a kind of FDP with a heart for climate protection – won a total of six mandates in four districts. The FDP has five mandates in three districts. The animal protection party sits with one representative in three district council assemblies. Each BVV has 55 district representatives.

A variety of small groups failed, such as the neo-Nazi party Die Heimat with 0.6 percent in Treptow-Köpenick and with 0.3 percent in Lichtenberg. The list of foreigners for Berlin consisting of EU foreigners, which competed in individual districts, did not exceed 0.2 percent. The DKP in Treptow-Köpenick, which did not attempt it in any other district, and the Antifascist Alliance Spandau only achieved 0.2 percent. The “Jan Mihm: Best Man” list reached at least 0.8 percent in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg.

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