In Bremen, the parliament will be elected on Sunday, the Bremen citizenship. The city-state has been governed by the SPD for decades, but polls show that the CDU and SPD are close together.
The smallest federal state of Bremen elects its state parliament, the Bremen Parliament, on Sunday. According to polls, a close race is expected – with the long-term governing party SPD slightly ahead of the CDU. This would reverse the situation again after 2019. Bremen is the last federal state whose state parliament is elected for four years. In other countries, the legislative period lasts five years.
Who can vote?
According to the election management, a good 462,000 people are allowed to take part in the vote in Bremen and Bremerhaven. In addition, around 33,000 EU citizens are entitled to vote in the local elections held at the same time.
Why do Bremen and Bremerhaven vote separately?
One of the reasons for this is that the smaller city of Bremerhaven must be adequately represented in the two-city state. The state parliament, the Bremen Parliament, has 87 members. Of these, 72 MPs are elected for the city of Bremen and 15 for Bremerhaven. Bremen and Bremerhaven are considered separate elective areas, each with its own five percent hurdle.
Why is the AfD not allowed to compete in Bremen?
The AfD in the country has long been deeply divided. After a party conference and a failed presidential election last year, the situation finally escalated. As a result, two competing lists of candidates were submitted for the state election – which is not permitted under the law. Parties may only run with a list in elections. The state election committee rejected the approval of the two lists at the end of March.
The AfD took legal action against this, but the urgent applications failed at the end of April before the State Court of Justice and the Election Review Court. According to the opinion research institute Forsa, many AfD voters now want to vote for the Bürger in Wut (BiW) party.
Who are the Citizens in Anger?
The party was founded in 2004 and has so far been particularly successful in Bremerhaven. According to the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the BIW in political science are usually assessed as right-wing populist. So far, the BIW managed in Bremerhaven, but not in the Bremen area, the five percent. As a result of the AfD exclusion, that could change: surveys recently saw the BIW nationwide at eight to ten percent.
Who are the top candidates?
The Social Democrat Andreas Bovenschulte has led the Bremen Senate since 2019 with a coalition of SPD, Greens and Left Party. The 57-year-old wants to erase the disgrace of the last election, when the CDU became the strongest force ahead of the SPD for the first time. Ultimately, the Social Democrats were only able to continue governing because the CDU failed to form a government. Bremen is a traditional stronghold of the SPD, which has ruled there since the founding of the Federal Republic.
Accordingly, the SPD positions its tall candidate for mayor on several special posters, in which the head of “Bovi” – his nickname – protrudes over the poster surface. In the election campaign, Bovenschulte is campaigning for “a strong economy with good jobs and fair wages”, for more gender equality and security.
The Christian Democrat Frank Imhoff wants to do better than four years ago and not only want his party to win the elections in Bremen, but also to take government responsibility. The 54-year-old has been a member of the state parliament for 24 years and has been its president since 2019. The trained farmer and landscape manager has been running his own dairy farm in the Bremen area since 1996.
Politically, he focuses his election campaign primarily on the issue of education. In educational studies, Bremen always ends up at the bottom. In the event of a government takeover, Imhoff wants, among other things, to introduce a compulsory pre-school year for children with language deficits and promises more staff for day-care centers and schools. He also wants to better equip the police and judiciary in terms of technology and staffing.
What are the forecasts?
In polls over the past few weeks, the SPD’s narrow lead over the CDU has solidified. Most recently, a ZDF “political barometer” on Thursday saw 29 percent approval for the party, followed by 26 percent for the CDU. The Greens would come to 13 percent, the Left Party to eleven. The FDP would currently come to six and the BiW to ten percent. In addition to the possibility of SPD-led coalitions of three, there would also be a majority for a coalition of SPD and CDU. When asked who one would rather have as head of government, SPD incumbent Bovenschulte was well ahead of CDU challenger Imhoff (23 percent) with 60 percent.
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Because there was a kind of mood of change in the state of Bremen in 2019, voter turnout rose to 64.1 percent at the time. This time, a lower turnout is expected again.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
