Germany: Latest results of the Brandenburg state elections shows Scholz’s party slightly ahead of the Alternative for Germany party

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) came in first in the elections for the Brandenburg state parliament in eastern Germany, according to preliminary results published by German television channels.

According to the German channel ARD, the Social Democratic Party came in first place with 31% of the votes compared to 26.2% in the 2019 elections, while the far-right Alternative for Germany party (Afd) came in second with 30%, compared to 23.5% in the 2019 elections.

In contrast, the Christian Democratic Union party (CDU), of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, which leads the opposition in Germany, won 12,1% and came in fourth place, compared to 15.6% in the 2019 elections, while, the newly founded Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance party won 12%, coming in third place.

The results also revealed a significant loss for the Green Party, which received only 5%, compared to 10.8% in 2019, and the Left Party, which won 3%, compared to 10.7% in 2019.

If the result holds, it will give breathing space to Scholz’s struggling coalition government, which has seen a sharp decline in opinion polls a year before national elections.

The Brandenburg election is also closely watched because the Social Democrats have ruled it since German reunification in 1990 and because the chancellor’s constituency is in the state capital, Potsdam.

Brandenburg’s state premier Dietmar Woidke, a Social Democrat, had kept his distance from Scholz during the election campaign.

In his first reaction to the results, Woidke said he was happy with the victory over the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party.

“There was a lot of hard work,” Woidke said, adding, “The goal was to ensure that our country wouldn’t be branded by extremist forces”.

“And it seems to have worked… It was the social democrats – as has often happened in history – who stopped the extremists on their way to power,” he added.

The Secretary-General of the Christian Democratic Union, Carsten Linnemann, congratulated the Social Democratic Party, saying, “The Prime Minister has exploited his popularity to great effect, and this is true credibility.”

Indications were that the German state of Brandenburg was expected to record a high turnout in its parliamentary elections held on Sunday.

The turnout rate reached 46.1% of voters, according to the election director in the eastern German state.

The turnout rate had reached 31.3 percent at the same time in the previous parliamentary elections in 2019.

Mail-in ballots weren’t included in these provisional figures, as more than 20% of eligible voters are expected to vote by mail, up from 23.1% in the 2019 election.