The new citizenship shows much better than the old one that Hamburg is a city of immigrants. 35.5 percent of the population immigrated after 1950 or have immigrated parents. The proportion of MPs with such a migration background is around half.
In the state elections on February 23, the SPD had the most votes with 39.2 percent, ahead of the Greens with 24.2 percent, the CDU with 11.2, the Left with 9.1 and the AfD with 5.3 percent. The FDP narrowly failed at the five-percent hurdle but was given a direct mandate in the Blankenese constituency.
After the civic election five years ago, people with a migration background were represented significantly less well in parliament: just under 12 percent of the seats went to people with a migration background (hereinafter referred to as “migrants”), while their share of the population was just under 31 percent – a ratio of one in three.
It looks different if you only look at the “migrants” who also have a German passport, ie subtract the statistical “foreigners”. If you compare the share of these “migrants” who are entitled to vote – minus the children and adolescents – in the population with the share of the seats of “migrants” in the citizenship, the following results for the current election: Both are almost equal.
No candidates in South Elbe
Unsurprisingly, “migrants” in neighborhoods with a high proportion of immigrants were chosen rather directly. Leader number two is constituency – Billstedt, Wilhelmsburg, Finkenwerder – with 57.6 percent “migrants” and two deputies elected directly as constituency candidates: David Erkalp (CDU) and Mehmet Yildiz (Die Linke).
In the middle (42.4 percent “migrants”) Farid Muller was the only one to be elected directly, although he is also well networked in the gay scene. Gulfam Malik (SPD) achieved a very good result in constituency 10 – Fuhlsbuttel, Alsterdorf, Langenhorn – with a significantly below-average “migrants” share of 28.8 percent.
There were no direct mandates for “migrants” in constituencies 16 (Harburg) and 17 (Suderelbe), although these constituencies rank second and third in the migration statistics. No “migrants” had run here.
It is striking that people of Polish origin are significantly underrepresented as the second largest “migrants” group – for example, compared to those of Turkish origin. Krysztof Walczak, one of the AfD MPs, was born in Poland but spent practically his entire life in Germany.
“Migrants” are represented to varying degrees in the political groups. They are most strongly represented on the left, where they represent around a third of the MPs, around a fifth with the SPD, around a seventh with Greens and AfD. At the CDU, only one in 15 MPs, David Erkalp, has a migrant background.
