Pressure on the conservative politician has mounted over the past week following media reports alleging he had lied to the public during a blackout in January.
BERLIN — Kai Wegner, mayor of Berlin, announced Friday that he will not run for reelection in September following reports of him misrepresenting his handling of a major blackout earlier this year.
“I will tell the district party chairpersons that I am withdrawing my candidacy and that I will not stand again as the CDU’s lead candidate,” Wegner said during a press conference Friday.
Pressure on the conservative politician has mounted over the past week following media reports alleging he had lied to the public during a blackout in January. Several Berlin neighborhoods were left without energy or heating for four days during freezing temperatures following a far-left arson attack on energy infrastructure.
Wegner’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won 28.2 percent of the votes in Berlin’s snap election in February 2023, held after the Constitutional Court ordered a rerun of the 2021 vote because of irregularities.
Since then, the party’s support in the state of Berlin plunged to 17 percent — mirroring a broader national trend. The CDU has lost ground to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in nationwide polls, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s approval ratings declining ahead of several key state elections.
While the CDU is on course to be overtaken by the AfD in this year’s state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, they are also losing ground to the opposite end of the political spectrum in Berlin.
Berlin’s conservatives face tough competition from The Left, the Greens and AfD — all of which are polling between 18 percent and 20 percent.
Wegner told journalists Friday that he wants his party “to prevent a left-wing coalition led by The Left Party. The goal now is to strengthen the political center in this city so that left-wing extremists do not take over its leadership.”
The party’s slump in the German capital has also been fueled by Wegner’s communication about the blackout crisis management and a week of chaos and disruption caused by black ice and the city’s inability to de-ice pavements.
Back in January, Wegner told journalists he had stayed home on the first day of the blackout to coordinate the city’s response to the crisis, but later admitted to playing tennis that day in an interview with WELT TV — which, like POLITICO, is part of the Axel Springer Group.
The CDU said that it could not yet tell who would replace Wegner as top candidate.