Berlin will elect a new House of Representatives on September 20, 2026 – and 26 parties have been approved to run. The decision was made by the State Electoral Committee under the leadership of State Returning Officer Stephan Bröchler on Wednesday at the Red City Hall. Among them, of course, are the parties already represented in the House of Representatives: CDU, SPD, Greens, The Left, and AfD.

Of the declarations of participation submitted by May 20, 30 parties had originally announced their intention to run. This is fewer than in the 2021 election, when 39 parties registered. In recent weeks, the committee examined which parties met the legal requirements.

Homeownership Party: “We Mean It Seriously”

At the meeting, the committee decided whether six associations qualify as parties within the meaning of the Political Parties Act and may participate in the election. “Losdemokratie – Partei für eine starke Bürgerschaft” and “Eigenheim Partei – Die neuen Liberalen” were approved.

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Representing the latter was board member Gunnar Dreßler. He emphasized that the party wanted to make access to property ownership easier because, in the party’s view, ownership is decisive for financial and social advancement. “We mean it seriously. This is supposed to become a big thing,” Dreßler told the committee. The party currently has three members.

NSAfD, “Bananas for Germany” and Co.

The “Party of Pensioners” was not admitted to the election, nor were several submissionss by media activist Volker Stoi, who was previously active in the “Anarchist Pogo Party of Germany”. His “Bananas for Germany”, “Alternative Shit for Germany”, and NSAfD caused laughter in parts of the room when they were read aloud. The committee made it clear that party programs are not evaluated in terms of content. However, formal criteria are examined, such as a board consisting of at least three people, statutes and a program, as well as the fundamental organizational, personnel, and financial capacity to participate in the political process. Some requirements had not been met in the respective cases.

SPD representative Reinhard Naumann, a member of the State Electoral Committee, criticized Stoi’s “submissions that in part show contempt for our democracy,” during the meeting. Naumann may have been referring to the programs in which discriminatory terms, such as the N-word or the German Z-word, a slur used against Sinti and Roma, were in some cases “played with.” Stoi himself did not make an appearance at the meeting.

This article was originally written and published on the 11th of June in German. It was translated in English with the use of Artificial Intelligence.