Important Political Appeal

The more observant amongst you will have noticed that in recent weeks Berlin's filigrane and ornate lampposts have sprouted a veritable plethora of posters bearing the physiognomy of a multitude of inverterate liars politicians or those who desire to become so.

Yes, it's election time. On Sunday-after-next, 17th September.

Why is this important? The elections are for the Abgeordnetenhaus, Berlin's parliament, who get to choose the city's senate and the partyboy-in-chief, err mayor, and for the 12 district council parliaments known by the catchy moniker Bezirksverordnetenversammlung. Oi, don't go to sleep, this is leading up to something!.

If you are an EU citizen, and are properly registered with the relevant authorities and have lived here for for longer than three months, you'll have had post from your district elections office sometime in the last few weeks bearing the title Wahlbenachrichtigung, which informs you that you are eligible to vote, but only for your local Bezirksverordnetenversammlung, whose main purpose is to decide which library opening hours to reduce next. A thrilling prospect, is it not?

Well, this is the important bit MOVE THAT MOUSE POINTER AWAY FROM THAT BOOKMARKED LINK, NOW!!: the two rival far-right parties, the NPD and the Republikaner (I'm not sure what the difference is, but the Republikaner are apparently the slightly more intellectual, while the NPD appeals to the more oikish tendency), have put their three brain cells together (the Republikaner have two, apparently) and worked out that if they divided their efforts between Berlin's districts rather than standing against each other, they have better a chance of being elected. So in each district only one of the two parties is putting up candidates. Now, as the district councils only have a 3% threshhold (rather than the usual 5%), that increases the chances that some districts will suddenly end up with elected Adolf fanboys in their midst.

So this is what you can, should and really must do: GO AND VOTE. For anyone, doesn't matter who, just tick the box next to the Grey Panthers (the OAP party) or the Anarchistic Pogo Party, or anyone really. It all goes to reducing the far right's proportion of the vote and hopefully pushing them below that critical 3% barrier.

Polling stations (Wahllokal) are open between 8am and 6pm. You need to take your passport as identification, the Wahlbenachrichtigung letter is useful but not necessary. You can also apply for a postal vote up until 6pm on September 15th if your plans for Sunday 17th involve not being in Berlin.