September 14: NRW municipal election: Occurred polling stations

The polling stations for local elections have been open in North Rhine-Westphalia since 8 a.m. Almost 14 million eligible voters can vote on who should make political decisions in their place of residence over the next five years.

Who and what is chosen?

It is about 20,000 mandates in the local parliaments of the 396 cities and municipalities, the 31 districts and in the Ruhr parliament of the Ruhr regional association. Mayor, Mayor (OB), district councilors, city and municipal councils, district councils as well as district representatives in independent cities.

The integration councils are also chosen in many cities and municipalities. These are the municipal representations of migrants in NRW.

NRW municipal election is also the mood test for the federal government

The local elections in the state -strongest state is the last big election in Germany this year and is the first political mood test after the early Bundestag election in February. After all, NRW has more voters than all East German federal states together.

Does the CDU winning streak?

Since 1999, the CDU has regularly brought most votes nationwide in local elections in NRW. She was also the winner with a 34.3 percent winner in the previous municipal elections in 2020, followed by the SPD with 24.3 percent. However, for both parties, these were the historically worst results in local elections in NRW.

The Greens, on the other hand, achieved their best result with 20 percent and won their first three OB posts in the NRW industrial and energy country: in Aachen, Bonn and Wuppertal.

The AfD came to 5.1 percent, the FDP to 5.6 percent. The left reached 3.8 percent.

What prospects does the AfD have?

This time election researchers expect significantly higher results for the AfD. According to a survey by the Forsa opinion research institute for the NRW daily newspapers in July, the right-wing populists have prospect of almost tripling their result from 2020 to 14 percent. This would also correspond to the trend in the Bundestag election, where the AfD in NRW had ended up with 16.8 percent of the second votes as the third strongest force before the Greens.

How present are the parties on site?

In the local elections, the AfD only competes in 23 percent of the district members with a candidate for the mayor’s office. The youngest of the five parties represented in the Düsseldorf state parliament was only able to find a candidate in 86 of the 373 members of the district.

To choose the municipal councils, the AfD can compete in more than 60 percent of the communities belonging to the district, as can be seen from the figures of the state election manager. Here, too, it is significantly behind the other competitors.

The CDU has the most comprehensive personal tableau across all municipal levels to be filled as the NRW party with the highest members.

In contrast to the Bundestag or Landtag election, there is no blocking clause in the local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia for city and municipal councils and district councils. A 2.5 percent hurdle only applies to the elections to the Ruhr parliament and the district representatives of the independent cities.

The second chance: stitch elections

If none of the applicants in the first ballot received more than 50 percent of the valid votes in the elections for the (senior) mayor or district administrator, the two best-placed people will go into a runoff on September 28th. A simple majority to victory is enough here.

Eligible to vote for local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia are Germans and nationals of the other 26 EU member states who are at least 16 years old on election day. In addition, they have to live in the election area at least since the 16th day before the election, registered and entered the local electoral register.