Brandenburg election: SPD holds off AfD, but only just

Members of Germany's Social Democrats party (SPD) are breathing a sigh of relief after a narrow victory in the Brandenburg state election. Preliminary results show the SPD beat the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) into the second spot by less than 2 percentage points.

This vote comes amid growing talk about SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz and whether he should run in next year's German Federal Election.

‌The Brandenburg Social Democrats' celebrations were fairly muted as the first results of the state election came out – they had been pushed right down to the line by the AfD. The SPD has run this state since reunification in 1990, but the incumbent premier, Dietmar Woidke, says this has been a wake-up call.

"When an openly right-wing extremist party in our state scores around 30 percent of votes, it's hugely alarming for all of us, for all democrats, for everyone who stands up for freedom, openness and tolerance," he said. "Despite all the pride we feel today due to the good result, we must take this seriously."

Woidke spent a good part of the campaign distancing himself as much as possible from Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the national, ruling SPD party in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the electoral thumping the Social Democrats took earlier this month in Saxony and Thuringia.

The AfD did very well in both those states and party members are extremely pleased with their performance in Brandenburg – again running on a strong anti-migrant platform, including calls to close borders and carry out deportations. 

The party's leader in Brandenburg, Hans Christoph Berndt, says the AfD is challenging the status quo and has dealt a crippling blow to the conservative CDU: ‌"The cartel of parties that have governed here for decades has been exposed as such. We have also seen the public castration of the CDU."

The results in Brandenburg saw both of the junior parties in the SPD's national coalition, the Greens and the Free Democrats, fail to get enough votes to enter parliament.

All parties have rejected the idea of working with the AfD. That means the new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance party, BSW, could have a role as kingmaker in the government. However, that would mean the BSW – far-left on economic issues, but close to the far right on culture-war topics – forming a coalition with the center-left and conservatives in what is likely to be a fragile union held together with many compromises. 

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