Berlin election poster race kicks off with dinosaur rivalry and early-start fines
Parties began plastering Berlin with campaign posters at noon on Sunday, seven weeks before the 20 September Abgeordnetenhaus election, but some had already jumped the gun and now face fines.
Official start and the dinosaur distraction
Thousands of election posters went up on lampposts across Berlin from midday on Sunday, marking the official start of the hot phase of campaigning for the 20 September Abgeordnetenhaus and borough assembly elections. The five parties currently in the state parliament, plus the FDP and BSW, plan to put up roughly a quarter of a million posters between them. Several lead candidates helped with the hanging: Elif Eralp (Left) in Kreuzberg, Werner Graf (Greens) in Reinickendorf, Kristin Brinker (AfD) and Steffen Krach (SPD) in Steglitz, and the CDU's new acting general secretary Lukas Krieger.
In Friedrichshain, however, the most coveted spots had already been taken by a non-political rival. Hundreds of posters for a children's stage show featuring robotic dinosaurs lined the streets, frustrating party volunteers but also drawing smiles.
The dinosaurs are just hung too high.
A Green party helper remarked that if the dinosaurs could be elected, they would win.
Early birds and threatened fines
Despite the new noon start time, introduced via an amendment to the Berlin Street Act to prevent secret overnight pre-hanging, posters from the CDU, SPD, Left, BSW and Greens were already visible on Saturday and during the night to Sunday in districts including Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Lichtenberg, Neukölln and Steglitz-Zehlendorf. On the Weserstrasse in Neukölln, SPD, Left and Green posters were spotted on Saturday afternoon, and an SPD candidate's poster hung at Kottbusser Damm a day early.
District public order offices can impose fines of between 10 and 50 euros per poster. In past campaigns, such violations have added up to several thousand euros for individual parties. The BSW in Lichtenberg pointed to a permit issued earlier that still named 1 August as the start date, arguing the document had not been updated after the law changed. Other parties in the district reportedly hold similar permits. The previous week, large-format SPD posters appeared prematurely in Reinickendorf; the party blamed a mistake by a contracted service provider. The Bergpartei also put up self-designed posters ahead of the official start, which were removed shortly afterwards.
A daylight launch and the law change
For the first time, the poster race began in daylight rather than at midnight. The Berlin state parliament amended the street law in time for this election, shifting the start to Sunday at noon. The change was intended to ensure all parties begin simultaneously and to end the practice of covert early hanging under cover of darkness. Volunteers fanned out from Spandau to Marzahn and from Wittenau to Lichtenrade, fastening posters to lampposts, mostly with cable ties.
Scale of the campaign
With seven weeks until polling day, the parties are mounting a visible push across the capital. The combined poster tally from the five parliamentary parties plus the FDP and BSW is close to 250,000, according to their own statements. The campaign infrastructure relies heavily on volunteers, many of whom were out on Sunday securing the best positions. Jonas Gräber, a Green party helper in Friedrichshain, was one of them, moving along Warschauer Strasse with two colleagues and a cargo bike, attaching posters from noon sharp.
