After the SPD’s narrow election victory over the AfD, Brandenburg is facing a difficult task of forming a government – and the traffic light coalition at the federal level is facing a new test. Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke’s Social Democrats became the strongest force in the state election on Sunday after catching up, but their previous coalition partners, the CDU and the Greens, suffered significant losses. Without the AfD, Woidke would only have a majority with the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) alliance. The FDP’s decline has been so great that it is now once again questioning the coalition at the federal level.
The AfD is number two – but very strong
According to the preliminary official results, Woidke and his SPD received 30.9 percent of the vote, which is his stated goal: to be ahead of the AfD. However, the far-right party also performed well with 29.2 percent. The BSW, founded just a few months ago, came in third with 13.5 percent, ahead of the CDU with 12.1 percent. These are the four parties in parliament.
In contrast, the Greens, the Left Party and the Free Voters failed to clear the five percent hurdle and are out of the Potsdam state parliament. The FDP was not represented there before and now only achieved 0.8 percent. At 72.9 percent, voter turnout was higher than ever before in state elections in Brandenburg.
The AfD managed to win a so-called blocking minority – for the second time after its success in Thuringia three weeks ago. With 30 of 88 seats, it will have more than a third of the mandates in the future and can thus prevent decisions that require a two-thirds majority. This applies, for example, to the election of constitutional judges and also constitutional amendments. This gives the AfD considerable influence, although no other party wants to govern with it.
SPD and BSW – is that possible?
Prime Minister Woidke announced that he would first hold talks with his previous partner, the CDU. However, this two-party alliance lacks a majority. Mathematically, this could only be achieved with the BSW. Its co-leader Amira Mohamed Ali also signaled a general willingness. “We are bringing an open mind,” she said on Phoenix. “But it is important to us that the content is correct and that there are genuine improvements for the people of Brandenburg.” She named peace policy as one of the central issues.
An alliance with the SPD, for which this very peace policy could become a stumbling block, is not only considered difficult by party researcher Thorsten Faas. “It hasn’t been tried and tested,” the political scientist told the German Press Agency. “It is not certain that this will be a smoothly functioning coalition.”
The AfD sees itself as a force of the future
Because the AfD received more votes from young people than the other parties, it sees itself as the force of the future, as top candidate Hans-Christoph Berndt put it. According to an analysis by the research group Wahlen, the party received 30 percent of the votes from those under 30. The SPD only had a share of 21 percent in this age group, but was particularly strong among the 60+ generation.
Political scientist Faas advises that this high proportion of young AfD voters should be taken “very seriously”. However, the voting behavior of young people also shows that they are often open to all directions. He believes that equating the AfD with a party of the future is very exaggerated, said Faas, who teaches at the Free University of Berlin.
Right-wing extremism researcher Heike Radvan from the University of Cottbus-Senftenberg stressed: “We need more political education.” Young people often do not yet have a solid right-wing worldview. But more needs to be explained about German history, and the fight against misinformation is also important. The fact that the AfD only came in second is “no reason to sound the all-clear,” but rather a major challenge.
Disaster for two of three traffic light parties
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), currently on a business trip to New York to visit the United Nations, had actually announced that he would not comment on the election results until this afternoon. After the success of his party colleague Woidke, however, Scholz did say something: “It’s great that we won.” And continued: “I sensed that something was happening.”
During the election campaign, Woidke had expressly renounced Scholz’s support, as he was not expecting much support from the traffic light coalition, which was very unpopular with voters in polls. After the election, however, Woidke backed his party colleague: “The Chancellor is set as the candidate for chancellor,” the Prime Minister said on ARD.
The SPD draws the message from the result: fighting is worth it. The Greens, as election losers, are at a loss. There is a negative trend, “and we will fight our way out of it together,” said party leader Ricarda Lang on ARD. Lost trust must be regained.
FDP Vice-President Wolfgang Kubicki, on the other hand, went on the attack. He told broadcaster Welt TV: “People are fed up with the traffic light coalition.” There are completely different opinions on how to get the economy going again. “And either we actually manage to find a reasonable common denominator here in the next 14 days, three weeks – or it no longer makes sense for the Free Democrats to continue to participate in this coalition.”
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