After a heated election campaign on the issues of migration, internal security and peace, Brandenburg is electing a new state parliament today. According to the latest polls, the AfD is expected to be neck and neck with the SPD, which has governed Brandenburg continuously since German reunification in 1990. Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke only wants to remain in office if his SPD is ahead of the AfD. The polling stations open at 8 a.m.
Brandenburg only has 2.1 million eligible voters – compared to almost 13 million in North Rhine-Westphalia alone, for example. Nevertheless, the last state election of the year is considered important for national politics. The AfD has set itself the goal of “shattering” the traffic light coalition at the federal level with an election victory in Brandenburg. The chancellor’s party, the SPD, on the other hand, hopes to at least hold on to this stronghold and stabilize itself after poor poll results.
Woidke’s risky announcement
If the AfD replaces the Social Democrats as the strongest force, things could also become politically dangerous for Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The SPD politician is considered to be on the ropes one year before the next federal election.
During the election campaign, Woidke had kept his distance from Scholz and put everything on the line with a risky announcement: if the AfD really did become number one, he would resign from his government post. This enabled him and the SPD to almost catch up with the AfD in the polls on the home stretch. At the end of the election campaign, Woidke said that it was “close call. It’s either us or them.”
Blocking minority possible?
The AfD is listed by the state’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected right-wing extremist case. This means that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution sees “actual evidence” that “anti-constitutional efforts are being pursued”.
Since no one wants to form a coalition with them, the AfD has little chance of governing – even though they have already declared their top candidate Hans-Christoph Berndt to be the future Prime Minister and federal leader Alice Weidel to be the next Chancellor during the election campaign. A so-called blocking minority would be relevant in Brandenburg: with more than a third of the mandates, the AfD could, for example, block the election of constitutional judges.
View from abroad
The rise of the AfD, which became number one in Thuringia three weeks ago and also did very well in Saxony, has recently also sparked concerns abroad about a shift to the right in Germany, for example among partners in NATO and the EU.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) warned that the state election shows how Germany stands “in the world”. Felix Klein, the Federal Government’s anti-Semitism commissioner, also stressed in the newspapers of the Funke media group that the significance of the election goes far beyond the borders of the federal state.
Four parties – or seven?
In Potsdam, the SPD is currently governing with the CDU and the Greens. What a future coalition government might look like is unclear. In the ZDF political barometer a few days ago, the AfD was just ahead of the Social Democrats with 28 percent, with 27 percent. The CDU followed in third place with 14 percent and the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance, which was only founded this year, in fourth place with 13 percent. It is conceivable that only the SPD, CDU and BSW together can form a majority against the AfD.
In the survey, the Greens were just under the five percent hurdle with 4.5 percent and the Left with 4 percent, while the Free Voters were significantly more at 3.5 percent. If one of the parties wins at least one direct mandate, it would enter the state parliament with several representatives via the so-called basic mandate clause. A parliament with just four parties is therefore possible – or with up to seven. The FDP, on the other hand, is considered to have no chance.
Distances within the margin of error
It is important to remember that election polls are not forecasts, but rather a snapshot. Because of the statistical margin of error, very close results should be viewed with particular caution. According to the research group Wahlen, in the Politbarometer, for example, the margin of error was a good plus or minus three percentage points for a share value of 40 percent, and still a good plus or minus two percentage points for a share value of 10 percent.
There are usually 88 seats up for grabs in the Potsdam state parliament. If there are many overhang and compensatory seats, there can be up to 110 seats. In the 2019 state election, the SPD received 26.2 percent, the AfD 23.5 percent, the CDU 15.6 percent, the Left 10.7 percent and the FDP 4.1 percent. The Greens received 10.8 percent and the Free Voters 5.0 percent.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:240922-930-239461/1
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