Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner announces he will not seek reelection in the 20 September election, ending his campaign after mounting criticism of his handling of an earlier power outage. Wegner’s withdrawal follows public outcry over the “tennis-gate” dispute, in which he played tennis while large parts of Berlin were affected by a January blackout. Several outlets report that the episode has dominated discussion of his leadership and damaged his standing within his party, the Christian Democrats (CDU).
Wegner says he acknowledges failures in communication and his management of the situation, while also noting that other parts of his political work have received less attention due to the controversy. The decision comes after increasing pressure from within the CDU, including calls for him to step aside. Reports also describe an open letter from party members this week urging him to withdraw from the race.
With Wegner out of the contest, Berlin’s political field will need to adjust ahead of the scheduled election as the fallout from the January outage and the tennis-related criticism continues to shape the debate.
