Kommunalwahl: Niedersachsen hat gewählt – Wolfsburg bleibt in CDU-Hand

In Niedersachsen, millions of people cast their votes in the municipal elections, with the results closely watched by Berlin's party headquarters. As one of the first decisions, the outcome of the Wolfsburg city council election became clear shortly after 8 pm, with incumbent Dennis Weilmann (CDU) narrowly securing the absolute majority with 50.1 percent of the vote.

Karsten Schneider (SPD) came in second with 15.5 percent, followed by Thomas Schick (AfD) with 14.1 percent. In the state capital, Hannover, it was already evident that a runoff would be necessary in two weeks, as incumbent Oberbürgermeister Belit Onay (Green) led significantly ahead of his SPD challenger Axel von der Ohe.

A voter turnout of 50.67 percent was reported by the election authorities at 4:30 pm, with more people casting their votes than in the 2021 election. Over 6.3 million people were eligible to vote, electing municipal representatives, mayors, and land commissioners across the country. Preliminary results will be awaited around 10:30 pm, but a nationwide projection by Infratest dimap is expected on Sunday to clarify the parties' performance.

CDU Landesvorsteher Sebastian Lechner expressed optimism that his party would emerge as the strongest force nationwide after the election. He was convinced that the Landes-CDU could surpass the federal trend and maintain its position as the strongest party in Niedersachsen. Lechner acknowledged the party's credibility issue due to its opposition to Berlin and suggested that this should be discussed calmly in the coming weeks.

The municipal election was not only a sentiment test in the SPD-led Niedersachsen before the upcoming Landtag elections, but it also served as a gauge for the AfD's performance in a western German state, after the AfD's success in the Saxon-Anhalt Landtag elections and before the upcoming elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin.

The AfD had achieved 4.6 percent of the vote in the 2021 municipal elections in Niedersachsen. Unlike before, the AfD Landesverband is now under observation by the Federal Constitutional Court as a right-wing extremist entity. Four AfD candidates were, however, barred from the vote due to doubts about their loyalty to the constitution.

One of them is AfD Landesvize Stephan Bothe, who was not allowed to run as the Lüneburg Landrat. The CDU in Niedersachsen is anxiously awaiting the outcome, hoping that Chancellor Friedrich Merz can recover from the anticipated setback in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where the CDU recently scored only 7 percent. The municipal elections are the first nationwide polls since Ministerpräsident Olaf Lies took over from Stephan Weil (both SPD) a year ago.

Lies cast his votes in his hometown of Sande in Friesland and encouraged voters to carefully consider the candidates at the local level. He stressed that it was not a small Bundestag election, but a genuine personal election, and that it was about their own community, city, or district. In the 2021 municipal elections, the CDU had emerged as the strongest force with 31.7 percent of the vote, ahead of the SPD with 30.0 percent.

The Greens had achieved 15.9 percent five years earlier, while the FDP received 6.5 percent, the AfD 4.6 percent, and the Left 2.8 percent. The voter turnout in 2021 was 57.0 percent.