(Bloomberg) — Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats have ruled the eastern German region of Brandenburg since reunification in 1990, but their grip on power is under threat from the far-right Alternative for Germany in Sunday’s election in the former communist state.
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The AfD has stronger support across the east than in the west and in Thuringia this month became the first party of the extreme right to win a regional election since World War II. It narrowly finished second to the conservative Christian Democrats in neighboring Saxony the same day and has led in Brandenburg in most recent opinion polls, a few percentage points ahead of the chancellor’s SPD party.
Scholz, whose governing alliance at the national level has seen its backing plunge to record lows, will likely bear the brunt of the fallout if the SPD fails to become the strongest party in the region, which surrounds the capital Berlin and is home to his Potsdam constituency.
It’s also the site of a Tesla Inc. factory that employs about 12,000 people but has proved something of a mixed blessing for locals.
Exit polls will be published at 6 p.m. local time, with preliminary results following a few hours later. Here’s what to watch:
Polls
The AfD almost certainly won’t be able to form a government even if it wins in the state — which the SPD currently runs in a coalition with the Christian Democrats and the Greens. It won’t command a majority of seats and all other parties have ruled out working with it.
Still, an AfD success and poor performances from mainstream parties would add to evidence that Germany’s political center is crumbling in some parts of the country with a little more than a year to go before the next scheduled national election.
A Forschungsgruppe Wahlen poll for public broadcaster ZDF published Thursday showed the SPD at 27% in Brandenburg and the AfD narrowly ahead at 28%. The CDU was at 14%, while the Greens were on 4.5%, in danger of missing the 5% threshold for getting into parliament.
The Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht, or BSW, a new party of the far left formed in January, is at 13%. It might be needed to help keep the AfD out of power.
Woidke Factor
If the Social Democrats win, Scholz is unlikely to be given any credit. Dietmar Woidke, the popular SPD premier in the state for the past 11 years, sought to distance himself from the federal government during campaigning and didn’t invite Scholz to any of his rallies.
According to the poll for ZDF, if voters could pick their regional premier directly, 59% would choose Woidke compared with 16% for Hans-Christoph Berndt, the AfD’s lead candidate.
“We wanted to make it clear that this regional election is about Brandenburg and about who will lead this state into the future,” Woidke told ZDF Friday when asked how damaging Scholz had been to his prospects. He has ruled out continuing as premier if the AfD wins.
Repercussions
Another disappointing regional performance for the SPD is likely to fuel fresh debate about whether Scholz is the right man to lead the party into the next general election.
As an alternative, it could consider the popular defense minister, Boris Pistorius, as their chancellor candidate.
To win the national vote, scheduled for Sept. 28, 2025, the SPD will have to close a yawning gap to the opposition conservative alliance, which is leading on around 32% — more than the three parties in Scholz’s coalition — his SPD, the Greens and the Free Democrats — combined.
The business-friendly FDP barely registers in the polls in Brandenburg and is also in danger of missing the 5% threshold to get into federal parliament next year.
Issues
One reason for the rise of extremist forces on the right and left is frustration among voters with the government’s management of irregular migration — and the issue has been front and center in campaigning in Brandenburg.
Michael Stuebgen, a Christian Democrat who is the state interior minister, raised eyebrows this week when he called for Germany to drop the individual right to asylum from the constitution, which is also an AfD demand.
“We can then decide who comes to our country,” Stuebgen said in an interview with the Handelsblatt newspaper published Thursday. “And we can determine the extent to which we can accept and integrate migrants.”
Russia’s war on Ukraine has been another major — and divisive — topic. As well as wanting to curb migrant arrivals, both the AfD and the BSW have agitated for a halt to German support for the government in Kyiv.
–With assistance from Kamil Kowalcze and Michael Nienaber.
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