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BERLIN, ELECTIONS STILL CLOSED TO FOREIGNERS – ONE-QUARTER OF CITY
POPULATION  
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Ben Knight
September 14, 2026
Deutsche Welle
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_ A quarter of Berlin residents will have no say in the German
capital's city-state election because they lack citizenship. That's
the highest proportion of residents excluded from the election yet,
and many are unhappy. _

Berliners head to the polls September 20 to elect a new state
parliament. The anti-immigrant AfD party has been making significant
gains., Image: Sonam Mishra/DW

 

Abdu, an Egyptian software developer, ended up in Germany's capital
more or less by chance seven years ago. "I wouldn't say I chose
Berlin," he told DW. "It was just that the company that offered me a
job was here." 

But now he loves it. The culture is "better than any other city I have
experienced," he said. That's partly because of its diversity, but he
also likes the way Berliners approach life. "They're more interested
in living than just working," he said. "Here I feel life is more
relaxed, and this also offers the opportunity for people to get more
creative." 

But there's plenty about the city that he's not particularly happy
with, including BERLIN [[link removed]]'s
rapidly rising rental prices, and the notoriously opaque bureaucracy
is a constant source of annoyance. "I myself would like to start my
own business, but it is difficult because of all the bureaucracy," he
said.

In general, Abdu is dissatisfied with Berlin's current government, a
conservative-led coalition of the CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC UNION
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(CDU) and the center-left SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY
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— but the trouble is, as a non-German national, he has no say in
deciding whether it should stay in office or not. That is particularly
frustrating at the moment, when the streets are bristling with
campaign posters ahead of the election on September 20.

"We are people who pay taxes, but we don't have any representation at
all, even on local level," he said. "The cuts to health care and
German courses, for example, affect me directly."

BERLIN: BIGGER AND MORE INTERNATIONAL

The German capital is growing and becoming more international. While
the voting population in the upcoming election will be bigger than
ever — mainly because the voting age has been lowered to 16 — so
is the number of the disenfranchised.

Of Berlin's population of 3.9 million, a full quarter — around
976,000 adults — cannot vote because they don't have GERMAN
CITIZENSHIP [[link removed]].
That number has doubled since 2011.

This is partly because of Germany's political structure. In Germany
and across Europe, citizens of other EU countries can vote in
municipal elections. In London, people from Commonwealth countries
can do the same as long as they have UK residency.  Spain,
meanwhile, also has reciprocal voting agreements with several non-EU
countries — in South America and elsewhere — that allow their
citizens to vote in municipal elections, including for the mayors of
Madrid and Barcelona. 

Berlin's upcoming election is not a municipal one. Since Berlin is one
of Germany's 16 federal states, this will be a state election, which
means that voting rights are more restricted. Berlin's municipal
elections, where EU citizens are allowed to vote, only decide who
governs the city's individual districts, and their political
influence is limited. 

The disenfranchisement is particularly acute in central Berlin. For
that reason, Stefanie Remlinger, GREEN PARTY
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district of Mitte, has organized a "symbolic election" for the
non-Germans in her area — some 135,000 adults out of a population of
365,000. The initiative invites foreigners to vote at 15 ballot
stations over a two-week period in early September to "raise
awareness for the issue of voting rights for all."

"Mitte is an extremely heterogeneous district with a very
international population," Remlinger told DW via video call from her
office. "We have people from 170 different countries living here, and
a lot of them don't have the right to vote. It's important to us to
signal to those people that we value their opinions, that we see
them." 

 
Around a third of adults in Stefanie Remlinger's district don't have
German nationality  (Image: Annette Hauschild //  DW)
GERMANY'S 'RIGHTWARD SHIFT'

Getting people to vote in a meaningless election is a tough sell.
Remlinger said she expected only a few hundred people to take part,
and, anyway, she thinks the political climate in Germany is not
exactly immigrant-friendly at the moment. Even in cosmopolitan Berlin,
the anti-immigrant ALTERNATIVE FOR GERMANY
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is currently polling in second place, with nearly 20%.

"We as the Greens would liberalize voting rights even more, but I
don't see the general debate in Germany going that way," she said.
"We're fighting a rightward shift and a lot of hostility to
immigration, and I think the chances of changing something on that
issue right now are very bad."

To illustrate the state of the current debate, Remlinger mentioned a
recent panel discussion she was part of, where a politician from the
neoliberal FREE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
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a party that calls itself socially liberal — said voting rights
shouldn't be opened to foreigners because they might start their own
parties and take over the government. "And that from someone from the
FDP!" said Remlinger, exasperated.

Abdu is also aware of this anti-immigrant shift in German politics. In
fact, he said, that was one of the reasons he was considering leaving
Germany altogether. "All the parties are trending right-wing, so it's
getting more hostile," he said. 

IS EXPANDING VOTING GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY?

From an economic perspective, it might be considered a shame if
qualified people like Abdu decided to leave Germany. The country lacks
workers. The government estimates that the country will be short of
about 440,000 workers by 2029, and even the AfD leadership claims it
has nothing against immigrants who contribute to the economy.  

Though some German cities and local authorities do have an elected
advisory board for non-German residents, offering immigrants a real
vote is frequently seen as a step too far. 

Remlinger herself thinks that the best path to enfranchisement is not
to offer foreign nationals voting rights, but to make it easier for
immigrants to become German citizens.

That happens to be another one of Abdu's complaints about Berlin: "I
applied for citizenship two years ago, and I didn't get any response,"
he said.

Germany has recently tightened citizenship rules again. Last year,
Chancellor FRIEDRICH MERZ
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reversed the three-year "fast-track" citizenship option introduced
under his predecessor, Olaf Scholz. Still, the government did keep
another of Scholz's reforms, which allows people to apply for
citizenship after only five years of residency.

More and more Berliners are in fact becoming German: 2025 saw about
39,000 people naturalized in the capital, 17,000 more than in 2024. 

That avenue is still closed for Abdu, but in the meantime, a little
more political participation would go a long way. "If I could vote, I
would reconsider leaving, to be honest, because then I could affect
things, but now I'm just like a bank machine — they come to me and
take half of my salary."

_Edited by: Rina Goldenberg_ 

* Berlin elections 2026
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* German elections
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* Berlin
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* Germany
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* Die Linke
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* Afd
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* Immigrants
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* Racism
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* foreign workers
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* German citizenship
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* German nationalism
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* Fascism
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* Housing
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* Christian Democratic Union
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* CDU
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* German Social Democratic Party
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* SPD
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