German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing another electoral disaster at the hands of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), with the far-right party set to claim another victory in the Brandenburg regional election.
The AfD won an historic vote in the east German state of Thuringia on September 1 and came a close second in the neighbouring state of Saxony.
Meanwhile, the parties of the federal coalition government – the Free Democratic Party (FDP), the Greens, and Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) – all performed dismally in both polls.
In Thuringia, the SPD got just 6.1 percent, the Greens just 3.2 percent and the Free Democratic Party 1.1 percent of the vote – a damning indictment of the governing parties’ lack of popularity.
In Saxony, voters signalled similar discontent. The SPD won just over 7 percent, while the Greens took just over 5 percent and the FDP less than 1 percent.
The next regional election is next week in the state of Brandenburg, which surrounds the city state of Berlin. A Forschungsgruppe Wahlen poll puts the SPD on a much higher polling than it won in Thuringia and Saxony – 26 percent – however, still behind the AfD.
According to the poll, the AfD will take 29 percent of the vote in Brandenburg, and the “left-conservative” Sahra Wageknecht Alliance (BSW) is on for 14 percent, just a point behind the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU).
Although the AfD looks set to claim its second regional election win of the last three held in east Germany, rival parties have vowed to maintain a “brandmauer” or firewall preventing the party from taking office.
The AfD won in Thuringia and may be on to win in Brandenburg, but without a majority of seats it needs coalition partners to govern.
With parties wedded to the firewall, the AfD has thus far been locked out of office.
That said, irrespective of the AfD’s failure to take the keys of power in Thuringia and Saxony, its electoral performance relative to the governing parties sends a stark message to federal leaders, none more so than Chancellor Scholz.
