BERLIN – It’s state election season in Berlin. Canvassers stand outside U-Bahn stations, stuffing leaflets into the hands of annoyed commuters ahead of the vote on 12 February. Campaign posters are affixed to lamp posts across the city, airbrushed faces on multi-coloured backgrounds smiling down on passers-by like municipal guardian angels.
Except this election was already held in September 2021. But the vote was so incompetently organised, with so many irregularities – mainly because the Berlin marathon was held on the same day, overwhelming state officials – that a court ordered the capital to rerun the vote a year and a half later.
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