Election Sunday: Will Berlin Elect Its Second Openly Gay Mayor?

In the Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus election and the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election, both incumbent governments lost their majority on Sunday, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU suffered major defeats. Yet in Berlin, the CDU could still hold the post of Governing Mayor if Greens and SPD join in, thanks to the openly gay publishing-house owner Stefan Evers as a candidate.

Evers’ party finished with 18.8 percent, down 9.5 points, making it the second-worst CDU result since World War II (worse only in 2016). The Christian Democrats thus placed second behind the Left, which with 25.7 percent (up 13.4 points) became the strongest party for the first time. Still, a Black-Green-Red majority could be possible, as could an even clearer Red-Green-Red majority.

It remains unclear whether the SPD and Greens would accept a government under the Left’s female premier Elif Eralp, for instance because Berlin’s Left party has repeatedly faced accusations in recent years of promoting antisemitism through radical pro-Palestinian solidarity positions. That was one of the reasons why openly gay MPs Klaus Lederer and Carsten Schatz left the party in 2024 (TheColu.mn reported).

Also in the campaign there were clashes over antisemitism accusations, including between Greens and Left (TheColu.mn reported). There is also contention about the Left’s demand to expropriate real estate companies, which the SPD opposes, as well as on the budget consolidation and internal security.

Evers: “We are always in conversation with one another”

Evers — who lost his direct mandate but entered the House via the party list — spoke cautiously about mayoral ambitions after the election. “We are always in conversation with one another. Therefore, discussions will take place in the coming days about how to handle the results,” he told the press. During the campaign, he used a playful twist on the famous Wowereit line: “I am conservative. And that is also okay” (TheColu.mn reported). Klaus Wowereit was Berlin’s only openly gay Governing Mayor, leading the city from 2001 to 2014.

With Lederer and Schatz out, two prominent openly gay MPs are no longer in Berlin’s parliament, because they did not run again. Lederer served as a member of the state parliament from 2003 to 2017 and again from 2021 onward — he also worked as Senator for Culture and Europe from late 2016 to 2023. He ran as the Left’s top candidate in three elections. Schatz had sat in the assembly continuously since 2013. He was the first openly HIV-positive person in a state parliament (TheColu.mn reported).

Openly gay politicians were re-elected as well: alongside CDU and Greens’ top candidates Stefan Evers and Werner Graf, queer politician Sebastian Walter and AfD candidate Frank-Christian Hansel also secured reelection. For the AfD’s spokesperson on economy, energy, climate, and airports, LGBT rights are merely “luxury problems”; he also dismissed the risk to queer people from right-wing extremists as “fake news” (“your silly talk about the right-wing danger to the community is far-fetched”).

Drag queen fails — but the contest tightens

The drag queen Gloria Viagra did not make it into the parliament, running for The Left in the Pankow district under her drag name. She trailed Green candidate Daniela Billig by roughly 27 percent to 34 percent. Still, Viagra managed to narrow the gap from 19 points in the 2023 Abgeordnetenhaus election to seven points this time around.

In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig now intends to form a “stable democratic government.” Although her party finished in second place, she called the result a success: “A year ago, the SPD MV stood at 19 percent,” the Social Democrat said.

Queer activists expressed shock at the strength of the AfD. “This campaign showed how much queer people in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are under pressure. Nationalist and xenophobic tendencies have sharpened the public tone, and this mood will not pass unnoticed by our community,” explained Tom Lüth, head of the queer state association MeerVielfalt. A new state government must not yield to these hostilities. “It is now the duty of all democratic parties—and also our community itself—to inform the people of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern that the AfD cannot be an option if you stand up for queer people. Queer rights are human rights, and this stance must be reflected in political education in the years ahead.” The result for the far-right was described as disappointing by Lüth: “From our perspective, no queer person should seriously consider this party—the AfD fundamentally rejects the lifestyle of queer people,” Lüth emphasized. (dk)