Germany's Olaf Scholz suffers loss at Berlin election

Result puts question mark over coalition between Social Democrats, Greens and Linke party

A man casts his vote in local elections at a polling station on February 12 in Berlin. Getty

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats on Sunday fell behind the opposition conservatives in Berlin for the first time in more than two decades after a heavy setback in a regional poll.

The Social Democrats lost the vote on local issues, but the disappointing result comes as Mr Scholz faces widespread criticism for hesitating to provide military support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion last year.

The chancellor's party slipped to their worst post-war result in the capital during the court-ordered rerun of the election in 2021.

The conservative CDU, in opposition in the city and in the federal Parliament, surged to about 28 per cent, up from 18 per cent.

Berlin, one of the country's 16 federal states, was ordered by courts to return to the ballot boxes after the 2021 election was found not to meet basic democratic standards amid widespread voting problems.

The outcome of the rerun puts a question mark over the continuation of the coalition between the Social Democrats, Greens and far-left Linke party.

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"If we have an opportunity for an SPD-led government, then we will try to organise a stable majority for it," incumbent Social Democrat Mayor Franziska Giffey told ZDF after first estimates.

But early figures suggested her junior coalition partner the Greens could finish ahead of the Social Democrats with about 18.5 per cent of the vote.

The Linke party's share of the vote was meanwhile estimated at about 13 per cent.

Ms Giffey and the Social Democrats seem to have been penalised by voters after violent scenes in the capital over the New Year, with revellers attacking the emergency services with fireworks in neighbourhoods with a large immigrant population.

The conservative opposition accused Berlin's administration of failing to control the situation and sparked a citywide debate over integration.

The election was also marked by discontent over rising rent prices in the capital and disputes over transport policy.

The result of the elections reflect the Social Democrats' struggles nationally, as Mr Scholz's government, in power for just over a year, wrestles with rampant inflation and the fall-out of the war in Ukraine.

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The difficulties for Mr Scholz's coalition with the Greens and the liberal FDP have been to the benefit of opposition parties.

Along with the conservative CDU, the far-right AfD increased its share of the vote slightly to about nine per cent in Sunday's rerun, according to the estimates.

The rerun in Berlin is only the second time in German post-war history that a state election has been declared invalid, after irregularities were reported in a vote in Hamburg in 1991.

The organisation of the 2021 election on the same day as a national vote, a local housing referendum and the Berlin marathon had led to widespread logistical problems.

Ballot papers got stuck in traffic as roads were closed for the race, with lines forming outside polling stations struggling to process votes.

Sunday's election took place under the watchful gaze of international election observers from the Council of Europe, invited in by the city to restore trust after the 2021 fiasco.

Berlin also called up an army of 42,000 election helpers, 8,000 more than last time, and gave polling stations extra ballots to avoid shortages.

The German Parliament has also resolved for national elections to be partly repeated in Berlin, with the date of that vote yet to be set.