As the election winner, Franziska Giffey only flirted with a traffic light coalition in the capital. When she turns to red-green-red, she is met with sheer fury. The SPD pragmatist only did what was part of the exploratory game.

Franziska Giffey has already experienced how rough the political environment in Berlin is as district mayor of the notorious problem district of Neukölln. But what she is currently experiencing has a new quality. The tabloids speak of “treason” and “electoral fraud”. Not even in the office of the ruling mayor, Giffey is declared the “Losing Mayor”.

The outrage is fed by the expectations that Giffey aroused during the election campaign. Because of their clear “no” to the expropriation of large housing groups and their preference for law and order, the Berlin CDU already saw itself mentally at the Senate table. That was just as premature as the FDP’s hope of co-governing in the Red City Hall.

Giffey drove on two tracks

Franziska Giffey has publicly stated that she would prefer to have the traffic lights from the SPD, Greens and FDP for Berlin, as in the federal government. At the same time, however, she continued to negotiate with the Left Party. It drove in two ways: out of conviction, out of tactical considerations and because of the balance of power. Giffey is not a fixture in the Berlin SPD. She has not been on the ox tour for years and is not so deeply rooted in the party.

For the very left-wing Berlin SPD, the prominent party right Giffey was the last anchor of hope, because no one trusted the governing mayor Michael Müller to turn things around again. In the election campaign, Giffey caught up and secured first place for the Berlin SPD in a blink of an eye final. Your election result of 21.4 percent is the worst that the SPD has regularly achieved in parliamentary elections. That costs the election winner the legroom she would like to have.

Greens advocated leftists

From several large SPD district associations, Giffey Die received a clear message that red-green-red is still desired. SPD Vice-Vice President Kevin Kühnert also worked hard for this coalition. And then there are the Berlin Greens with their top candidate Bettina Jarasch. You have gained a lot in your choice and are bursting with strength. Jarasch clearly signaled from the start that she wanted to get the Left Party and not the FDP on board.

Franziska Giffey summed up these Berlin conditions as saying that a three-party coalition has to appeal to all three partners. So the FDP flew out of the exploratory carousel, and the Berlin Greens can feel as clear winners on the coalition issue.

Greens and leftists pay a price

What price the Greens and Left have to pay for this can be read in the exploratory paper of the potential coalition partners. The talk is more abstract of climate protection and the turnaround in traffic. There is nothing in it of pushing back the car, as the Greens want and what Giffey rejects. The new residential building, on the other hand, will be a matter for the boss, as Giffey wanted.

The three parties even cleared the referendum on expropriation, in line with the likely new ruling mayor. Instead of drafting an expropriation law, which the left would like to do, a commission of experts is supposed to spend a year examining what is and what is not. For Giffey, there is also the reintroduction of the teaching office. And when it comes to the hot topic of video surveillance, the Greens and the Left are giving in to an old SPD demand. In future, the police should be allowed to use cameras under certain conditions in places with particularly high levels of crime.

Giffeys “social democratic handwriting”

All in all, this is the “social democratic handwriting” that Giffey made a condition for a new edition of the previous coalition. This result of the negotiations strengthens the Giffey-critical party left in the SPD. They are also to the liking of party rights close to Giffey.

Nevertheless, the soundings for the SPD state chairmen were a hard impact on reality in Berlin. Contrary to what was thought, the coming years should not be a one-women show for the inventor of the Good Day Care Act. The confident Greens alone will take care of that.

Franziska Giffey can, however, rely on a very comfortable red-green-red majority in the House of Representatives, very different from the traffic light coalition. Here she would have feared when she was elected governor that the mayor of the Social Democrats and the Greens would give her a lesson. Former Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit can tell you a thing or two about what it’s like to get through the first ballot. Franziska Giffey will also play this through very carefully and take it into account in coalition poker.