The first projections on the regional vote in Brandenburg, the German state with Berlin, indicate an advantage for the Social Democrats of the SPD, the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. According to a projection by ZDF, the SPD party would be, with 31.8% of the votes, ahead of the AfD, which obtained 29.2% of the votes. The big surprise is instead the decline of the CDU: the Christian Democrats are at 11.6%, with a drop of four percentage points compared to the previous elections, while the Greens and the Left also have a clear decline.
For the SPD, this is an unexpected success after having lagged behind for months in every election and while at a national level there is a palpable decline in popularity.
But the growth of the far right, if the projections were confirmed, is also undoubted in the Land. While the SPD obtained an increase of 5.6 percentage points, the AfD grew by 5.7 percentage points compared to the previous elections.
But, compared to the fears of the forecasts, many express satisfaction. “We have made a comeback that has never been seen before,” said the Social Democratic governor Dietmar Woidke. “The aim was to prevent the state from being marked with a ‘brown sign,’ a reference to the color associated in Germany with the extreme right.
Even though concerns remain: “I feel relieved today, but it’s still hard work, because around 30 percent is definitely too much for an openly right-wing extremist party,” Woidke said, referring to the nearly 30 percent projections for the AfD.
