Hamburg chooses: what you should know about the choice of citizens

The Hamburgers will decide on their new citizens on Sunday. The most important questions and answers at a glance:

In Hamburg, the citizens are the state parliament, comparable to the state parliament in other federal states. It is chosen directly by the Hamburgers every five years. Since Hamburg is a city-state, the MPs also take care of local and federal political issues. The citizens are responsible for legislation and budget. The citizens also control the Senate, i.e. the Hamburg government.

This time is elected on March 2. The Hamburgers have to go to the polling stations again exactly one week after the Bundestag election. In contrast to the federal election, the election age is 16 years. All Germans who have been living in Hamburg for at least three months can vote. According to the state election office, these are 1,318.101 Hamburgers.

At least 121 seats in the citizens are to be awarded. There are two ballots. The candidates of the parties are on the yellow state list voting list throughout Hamburg (second vote). This decides on the majority of the political groups in the citizens. 50 seats are awarded over the state lists.

The candidates who compete in the respective constituency (first vote) are noted on the red constituency list list. As a rule, 71 MPs move into the state parliament via the constituency list. Partial individual applicants can only have the red constituency list list set up for election.

Each voter can hand in up to ten votes – five on each of the two ballots.

There is currently a red-green majority in the Hamburg town hall. According to a survey of last week, the SPD and the Greens also have good chances of being able to continue their cooperation. According to a recent survey, the SPD would come to 32 percent of the votes for the ARD. The Greens would therefore come to 18 percent, closely followed by the CDU with 17 percent. Left and the AfD ended up in 10 percent of the votes. All other parties-including FDP, Volt and BSW-would fail at the five percent hurdle.

The first mayor is not chosen directly by the Hamburgers. The MPs who are elected to the new citizens vote on the head of government or the head of government. There has never been a woman at the top of the city state.

In 2020, the SPD won the election significantly with 39.2 percent of the vote. The Greens reached 24.2 percent and became the second strongest force. The CDU came to 11.2 percent, which was a historical low. The left moved into the citizens with 9.1 percent, the AfD with 5.3 percent.