German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) narrowly edged Alternative for Germany (AfD) in state elections in Brandenburg, in the country’s east, this Sunday, narrowly avoiding a new victory. extreme right.
Even though polls have tipped the AfD for victory all week – and almost the entire campaign, actually – polls suggest the center-left SPD will actually come out on top.
Dietmar Woidke, head of the SPD in Brandenburg – who has said he would resign if he loses to the AfD – was relieved at the “starting position” they found themselves in. “We said we’re going to fight this battle and our goal from the beginning is to make sure our land doesn’t end up with a big brown seal,” he said.
The elections in Brandenburg are a test of the SPD and Scholz’s governance: his party has ruled the state since German reunification in 1990, and given the AfD’s good results in Thuringia, it risks losing it to the far-right. and Saxony at the beginning of the month.
In state elections held on the 1st, the Alternative for Germany party became the first far-right party to win in a federal state – Thuringia – since the end of World War II. The centre-left party took its worst post-war turn. In Saxony, the SPD came fourth and the AfD second; Victory went to the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
If he does indeed win Brandenburg, Olaf Scholes will have a new lease of life until Germany’s legislative elections in about a year.
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