[COVID-19 Pandemic and Political Institutions]

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive restrictions on public life. A survey of more than 1500 local councilors showed that councils at the local level are restricted in their capacity. After a total lockdown in March 2020 at the local level, the local central committee (Hauptausschuss) took over, substituting for and representing the full city council's local decision-making capacity. Later on, in some cities, councils were able to implement council meetings with half of the councilors. In this "executive hour," several local committees and commissions as well as political events organized by the civil society could not be implemented.Before the local elections on September 22 in North Rhine-Westphalia, the pandemic affected the registration of political parties, which became problematic. Appropriate space, as well as digital infrastructure, was lacking. With more mitigated COVID-19 restrictions and new regulations for local elections by the province of North Rhine-Westphalia, electoral party registration was facilitated, and deadlines were extended. In particular, smaller political parties and new candidates for the mayoral direct election experienced problems in presenting themselves during electoral campaigns; new parties and candidates were often disadvantaged compared with the political incumbent and the established political parties.Furthermore, electoral street campaigning, panel discussions, and canvassing were extremely limited. In this time of "forced digitization," the established political parties in particular were able to focus on e‑campaigning. Because of these disadvantages, smaller parties requested postponement of the local elections. The majority in all political parties refused postal voting.