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Hamburg votes amid German political tumult
HAMBURG, Feb 23, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Voters in the prosperous German city-
state of Hamburg went to the polls Sunday, with the centre left expected to
hold its own against the Greens who have been enjoying rising popularity
across the country.
Turnout among the 1.3 million voters aged 16 and up was “somewhat higher”
than in 2015, at 29.5 percent around 11:00 am (1000 GMT), election supervisor
Oliver Rudolf told public broadcaster NDR.
Federal politics in Germany has appeared particularly chaotic in recent
weeks, with a regional vote in the former communist east bringing down
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chosen successor.
Over the longer term, the progressive, ecologist Greens look set to
replace the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) as the main national
rival to Merkel’s CDU conservatives, with support for them surging last year
and now almost twice as high as for the SPD.
But things are not so gloomy for the centre left in Hamburg, where despite
the Greens’ gains, the SPD looks set to maintain its grip on the mayor’s
seat.
In opinion polls in this wealthy “Free Hanseatic City” last week, support
for the SPD was well over 30 percent, a lead of more than 10 points over the
Greens and three times higher than the CDU.
“We have to hold our ground against the federal trend,” SPD lead candidate
and incumbent Hamburg mayor Peter Tschentscher, 54, told AFP.
In part, the centre left has done so by adopting policies with a
distinctly “green” feel, including a proposal to convert a massive coal power
plant to natural gas so as to slash greenhouse emissions.
Meanwhile, the far-right AfD — which enjoys strong support in the east of
the country — is struggling to gain ground in prosperous Hamburg where it
could even fall short of the five percent hurdle to enter parliament.
At just under 3,000 euros ($3,258) per month, incomes in the port city are
somewhat higher than the national average.
– Havoc in Berlin –
On Friday, the Greens’ national leader, Robert Habeck, said that the
prospect of the ecologists doubling their score in Hamburg from the last vote
in 2015 was “phenomenal”, even if they fail to unseat the SPD’s Tschentscher.
Should the opinion polls prove correct, the port city will likely retain
the “red-green” coalition that has ruled since 2011, sparing Berlin the
political earthquakes provoked by other recent regional votes.
Earlier this month, Merkel’s conservatives were shaken by the apparent
alliance of their regional branch in the eastern state Thuringia with the
far-right AfD party, voting in a liberal politician as state premier.
The breach of a historic political taboo provoked a nationwide outcry.
As a result, CDU leader and Merkel’s heir apparent, Annegret Kramp-
Karrenbauer, announced her resignation, throwing open the question of who
will succeed the veteran chancellor following elections next year at the
latest.
Meanwhile, the SPD’s failure to recover from disastrous showings in
federal elections in 2017 and in subsequent state polls has seen nervous
party members chew through multiple leaders.
The party finally settled on a duo of relative unknowns last year after a
long and divisive selection process.
The pair, Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken, have been notable by
their absence from Hamburg campaign events.
– No island –
While Hamburg’s political make-up is unusual, events in the final week of
campaigning showed that the port city is far from insulated from events in
the rest of Germany and Europe.
On Friday, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg joined a massive
“Fridays for Future” demonstration in Hamburg attended by around 10,000
people, according to police.
Weekly marches across the country by the school strike movement last year
helped force Berlin to raise its climate ambitions and fix a binding end to
coal power generation by 2038 in law.
At the same time, support for the Greens has surged across the country.
Meanwhile, both the SPD and the Greens cancelled final campaign events on
Thursday, after a racist gunman killed nine people with migrant backgrounds
in the city of Hanau.
BSS/AFP/RY/1745 hrs