AfD Candidate Falls Short in Reinickendorf: District Gets No Deputy Mayor

On October 30, the Reinickendorf district assembly voted on an AfD candidate for a deputy-mayor seat — and the result was one vote short of the required majority. Candidate Thomas Ruschin received 27 votes in the final round; the threshold was 28. The outcome was particularly charged because the CDU had publicly announced new guidelines — the "Reinickendorf Compass" — signalling it would work with the AfD in district-level governing bodies, breaking with the long-standing cross-party firewall against the far-right party. Approximately 100 protesters gathered outside city hall opposing the move. In the end the AfD-CDU arithmetic failed: either the BSW party or internal CDU dissenters did not vote as expected. As a result, Reinickendorf's district government will operate with only five members rather than the standard six, leaving the deputy-mayor post vacant. The taz headlined its coverage as stability for Reinickendorf, framing the failure as a check on the AfD's creeping normalisation at local level.