Berlin mayor abandons re-election bid after power-cut controversy / Photo: Tobias SCHWARZ - AFP/File
Berlin mayor abandons re-election bid after power-cut controversy
Embattled centre-right Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner announced Friday that he would not run for re-election just weeks before the vote after facing months of criticism over his response to a major blackout in Berlin.
"I can no longer get my message out because another debate is overshadowing everything else," Wegner said Friday.
"Yes, I made mistakes in communication," he added, referring to the power cut in January that left roughly 45,000 homes and around 2,200 businesses without power for nearly a week in the middle of a harsh winter.
Wegner has faced criticism for remaining at home on January 3 rather than rushing to the office or the hardest-hit areas, after an apparent act of sabotage knocked out power to an entire district of the city.
Wegner previously said he had been making phone calls about the situation throughout that day.
However, call logs obtained by the Tagesspiegel newspaper showed that no official calls were made before 12:45 pm on the day.
Polls have shown that Wegner, 53, is deeply unpopular and the coalition between his CDU and the centre-left SPD is likely to fall far short of a majority after the September 20 vote.
A poll in early July had the CDU slumping to fourth place, behind the far-left Die Linke, the Greens and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Wegner's problems in Berlin mirror those of his party colleague Chancellor Friedrich Merz, likewise mired in miserable poll numbers.
Merz has struggled to turn around Germany's sputtering economy or contain the surging far-right AfD, which holds commanding leads in two other eastern states that also hold regional elections in September.
The AfD has also gained ground in Berlin but Wegner said on Friday he was particularly concerned with the strength of the far-left Die Linke in the city, which now tops some polls.
Wegner said he was stepping aside partly in hopes that his party could regain ground and "prevent a left-wing alliance" led by that party.
- Ridicule over tennis -
Wegner has led Berlin since 2023, after his conservatives won local elections in the left-leaning German capital city for the first time in decades.
He pledged to modernise the city's notoriously dense bureaucracy, and on Friday contended that his government had made progress.
But the January blackout proved his undoing.
He faced ridicule after belatedly acknowledging that he played tennis for an hour during the day, a detail that was left out his initial accounts.
An embarrassed Wegner said he had played tennis to "clear my head" but this cut little ice with furious voters.
Wegner on Friday admitted that his "communication" about the day had been "rubbish" but he defended the city's response to the blackout.
"Everyone involved did a good job. We brought the crisis to an end a day and a half early," Wegner said.
He offered no opinion on who should replace him as top CDU candidate for the election.
Stefan Evers, who serves as the city's finance minister, is widely considered the frontrunner.
M.Marchand--JdCdC
