Elections!

About a month ago, large A2 photos of beaming people started appearing on every streetpost. They look very friendly, I thought, I wonder what they want? Answer: my vote on the 18th September, when Berlin goes to the polls to choose their local political representatives, who then in turn will vote for the Mayor of Berlin.

As these are local elections, I can as a EU citizen take part in them. But who do I choose? Almost knowingly the next volley of posters appeared with some clear manifesto commitments, which the parties presumably hoped would set them apart from each other. 'No' to privatisation of the S-bahn, fewer 30km an hour speed limits and minimum wage in all sectors (which, as a waitress, would be most welcome). The Piraten Party as you might expect took a slightly different tack - instead of proposing solutions in their posters, they simply promised to ask the questions and listen to our solutions.

For a bit more in-depth understanding of the parties and their politics, there are a couple of good on-line tools. The first (here) allows you to 'agree', 'disagree' or be 'neutral' against 30 or so main policies. It then matches you with your most similar parties, and then gives you a break down of how each party voted on each issue, from voting from 16 years old, to civil partnerships being given the same status as marriage, to quotas for women in management boards, to tax on hotel stays, to crackdown on far right and far left extremism, and to the preservation of the Templehof airport as a green space. This one gives a more detailed still breakdown on what each of the local candidates for your neighbourhood thinks on each of the issues.

With just two weeks to go, the parties have been bringing out the big guns too. Although not directly voted for, the mayoral candidates have a huge influence over how people vote locally. So there are huge posters across the city of Claus Wowereit, the incumbant SPD Mayor, and Renate Künast, the Green Party candidate, who at one point looked strong enough to follow Stuttgart in having a green majority, but is now wavering in the polls. And Angela Merkel has been throwing her support behind the CDU candidate.

Despite being local elections, Germany's federal set up makes these as important as national elections. With visible and well thought out marketing strategies, and Sunday voting, there is a clear drive to gain maximum voter turnout. Although it has been decreasing over the past few years, turnout across Germany is above 70% in federal elections, compared to around 65% in UK general elections (it has been as low as 59%) and only 38% in local elections.