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Germany’s Social Democrats were on course for a narrow victory in elections in the eastern state of Brandenburg, an unexpected reprieve for Olaf Scholz as he prepares to run for a second term as chancellor next year.
Projections by public broadcaster ARD put Scholz’s SPD on 31 per cent, slightly ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany on 30 per cent.
They suggest the SPD can continue to govern Brandenburg, a state which the party has ruled since German reunification in 1990 and which has long been seen as one of its national strongholds.
That will relieve the pressure on the chancellor, whose approval ratings have slumped in recent months and who has been named by pollsters as the least popular chancellor since reunification. A survey published last week found only 3 per cent of voters support his coalition of SPD, Greens and liberals.
Many in the SPD had privately suggested Scholz should set aside his ambitions of running for a second term in next year’s Bundestag election and improve the party’s fortunes by making way for a more popular politician, such as defence minister Boris Pistorius.
But with the SPD projected to win in Brandenburg, such critical voices may be silenced, at least temporarily.
The preliminary results show that the huge gamble undertaken by Brandenburg’s prime minister, Dietmar Woidke, appears to have paid off.
Woidke had threatened to resign if the AfD came first in Sunday’s election. The threat galvanised moderate voters of all persuasion, who rallied round their prime minister and secured him a narrow victory.
An exit poll by ARD found 75 per cent of SPD voters and 59 per cent of voters for the centre-right Christian Democratic Union said they were “not convinced by the party, but I’m voting for it to prevent a strong AfD”.
“It seems to be the case that it was the Social Democrats, as so often in history, that stopped the extremists on their path to power,” Woidke told supporters on Sunday.
“Dietmar Woidke and the Brandenburg SPD have staged a furious catch-up race,” said Kevin Kühnert, the SPD’s national general secretary, noting that the party had been polling at below 20 per cent a few weeks ago but, according to exit polls, was now above 30 per cent.
Experts said one reason for Woidke’s success was his decision to eschew joint appearances with Scholz and to distance himself from the chancellor’s policies, in a clear attempt to prevent his local SPD being tainted by association with an unpopular Berlin coalition.
However, the SPD’s apparent success in Brandenburg is unlikely to translate into better approval ratings nationwide. The party — together with its coalition partners, the Greens and liberal Free Democrats — has been blamed by voters for high inflation, surging energy costs and a stagnating economy.
The outcome in Brandenburg was also encouraging for the anti-immigrant AfD, large parts of which, in the view of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, threaten the country’s democratic system.
Three weeks ago it won elections in the eastern state of Thuringia, making it the first far-right party to secure victory in a regional poll in Germany’s postwar history. It also came second in neighbouring Saxony, just behind the centre-right Christian Democratic Union.
The party has profited from rising public concern about irregular immigration, especially in the wake of a terror attack in the western city of Solingen in August.
Woidke has headed a coalition of the SPD, CDU and Greens since 2019 and the ARD projections suggest the alliance can continue in power for a further term.
Sunday was also a good day for the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a new left-wing populist party that was only formed in Brandenburg four months ago. ARD projections show the BSW, which like the AfD opposes military aid for Ukraine, won 12 per cent of the vote.
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