In cosmopolitan Berlin, elections still closed to foreigners

Berliners head to the polls September 20 to elect a new state parliament. The anti-immigrant AfD party has been making significant gains Image: Sonam Mishra/DW

Abdu, an Egyptian software developer, ended up in Germany's capital more or less by chance seven years ago. "I wouldn't say I chose Berlin," he told DW. "It was just that the company that offered me a job was here."

But now he loves it. The culture is "better than any other city I have experienced," he said. That's partly because of its diversity, but he also likes the way Berliners approach life. "They're more interested in living than just working," he said. "Here I feel life is more relaxed, and this also offers the opportunity for people to get more creative."

But there's plenty about the city that he's not particularly happy with, including Berlin 's rapidly rising rental prices, and the notoriously opaque bureaucracy is a constant source of annoyance. "I myself would like to start my own business, but it is difficult because of all the bureaucracy," he said.

In general, Abdu is dissatisfied with Berlin's current government, a conservative-led coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — but the trouble is, as a non-German national, he has no say in deciding whether it should stay in office or not. That is particularly frustrating at the moment, when the streets are bristling with campaign posters ahead of the election on September 20.

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