Germany: SPD Victory in Brandenburg, Far Right Holds On

The SPD Socialists hold their ground in Brandenburg, a state that represents the stronghold of Scholz’s party. The success has been achieved without Scholz, as analysts point out, actually due to the “keeping” of the scandalous chancellor from the “traffic light coalition” away from the election campaign. This is the eighth consecutive regional election since 1990 in which the Social Democrats have won.

The final official preliminary results show the SPD and outgoing president Dietmar Woidke with 30.9% of the vote, just above the consolidated far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) with 29.2%. Next came the radical left-wing party led by Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) with 13.5% of the vote, followed by the Christian Democrats CDU (12.1%). However, the Greens and the Left failed to surpass the 5 percent barrier.

Olaf Scholz explained that this is “an excellent result, very good for the SPD and also for all of us. It’s great that we won. I felt like something was going on.” But in reality, according to analysts, the current chancellor’s popularity is not recovering at all; on the contrary, at the national level the SPD stands at around 16%, about half that of Woidke in Brandenburg.

“Our goal was to avoid a brown mark for our Earth (referring to the brown shirts of the Nazis, an obvious reference to the positions of the AfD – ed.). And we’re happy that, based on current data, that may be the case. We need to be a little patient, either way one thing is clear: we have made a comeback like we have never seen before.”