Germany’s SPD looks to halt rise of far right in its Brandenburg bastion

Sebastian Rüter has a simple message for the people of Brandenburg, the eastern German state that elects a new parliament on Sunday: vote Social Democrat or risk another win for the far-right Alternative for Germany.

“It’s the ‘us or them’ effect,” the SPD lawmaker said during door-to-door campaigning in Kleinmachnow, south-west of Berlin. “People realise the Social Democrats are the only force that can stop the AfD.”

The tactic seems to be working, at least in his constituency. As Rüter plied voters with leaflets, customised pens and homemade jam, one woman told him she would definitely vote SPD on Sunday. “We have no other choice,” she said.

Decision day in Brandenburg comes three weeks after elections in two other eastern states that shattered Germany’s late-summer calm. The AfD came first in Thuringia, the first time a far-right party has won a state election in Germany’s postwar history. It also scored big in neighbouring Saxony, coming a close second to the centre-right Christian Democratic Union.

Current polls suggest the AfD will also win in Brandenburg, an outcome that could prove hugely embarrassing for SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Brandenburg is the only state in the east of the country where the SPD has enjoyed uninterrupted rule since German reunification in 1990.

A particularly poor showing in the state could further weaken Scholz’s rickety coalition of SPD, Greens and liberals, and undermine internal support for his plan to run for a second term as chancellor in next year’s Bundestag election.

But recent polling suggests Scholz will be spared the most embarrassing outcome — a crushing SPD defeat — as his party seems to be closing in on the AfD, with the two now only two points apart.

Michael Minkenberg, a political scientist at the European University Viadrina in the Brandenburg city of Frankfurt an der Oder, attributed that to “voters’ shock at the election results in Saxony and Thuringia and at how difficult it will be to form workable governments there”.

Dietmar Woidke, Brandenburg’s popular SPD prime minister, has raised the stakes by threatening to resign if the AfD comes first on Sunday — a risky move for an incumbent who is the state’s most recognisable politician.

Martina Weyrauch, director of the Brandenburg Centre for Political Education, said the tactic could work. “A lot of rural communities in Brandenburg crave stability above all else, and so a lot of people will vote for him for the sake of stability and continuity,” she said.

The reason for that is clear: the after-effects of German reunification. Brandenburg residents “still remember the upheaval of the 1990s, when so many people lost their jobs and they’re really scared that could happen all over again”, said Weyrauch.

However, Woidke’s strategy could be risky even if the party wins. “An SPD victory could turn into a problem if potential coalition partners like the Greens fall below the 5 per cent threshold due to the increase in support for the SPD,” said Minkenberg.

The SPD would then be dependent on the leftwing populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which opposes German military aid for Ukraine, to form a government, he said.

“Woidke’s SPD is like a vampire that’s sucking the blood out of all the other democratic parties,” said Benjamin Lassiwe, a journalist who has covered Brandenburg politics for years.

The SPD has led a highly personalised campaign, plastering towns and villages with posters of the prime minister accompanied by cryptic slogans such as: “Wenn Glatze, dann Woidke” — or “If you want a bald head, then let it be Woidke’s”.

Woidke has also tried to distance himself from Scholz, shunning all joint campaign appearances with the chancellor — even though the chancellor and his wife live in the Brandenburg capital, Potsdam.

But despite Woidke’s best efforts, voter discontent with his party leader and his coalition — associated in many people’s minds with inflation, high energy prices and expensive climate policies — looms large.

“The problem is, this election is being seen as a referendum on Scholz’s coalition, even though it should be all about Brandenburg,” said Rüter, the SPD lawmaker. The government’s travails “haven’t helped us here”, he admitted.

The SPD has tried to curry favour with voters by pointing to the regional government’s economic record, particularly its success in persuading Tesla to open its first European gigafactory in the Brandenburg town of Grünheide. The plant employs 12,000 people.

Yet events on the national stage cast a long shadow, often blotting out local achievements. Berlin’s decision to ban imports of Russian oil after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, for example, had a direct impact on PCK, a big refinery in the Brandenburg town of Schwedt, which had to rush to find new suppliers.

Experts say PCK’s predicament has fuelled opposition in the state to anti-Russian sanctions and to Berlin’s support for Ukraine and boosted the electoral prospects of parties sympathetic to the Kremlin — the AfD and BSW.

The terror attack in the west German city of Solingen last month, in which a suspected Isis militant fatally stabbed three people and injured eight others, also had an effect. “You can see that after Solingen the AfD saw strong gains,” said Lassiwe.

In Kleinmachnow, Rüter said voters were increasingly aware of what was at stake on Sunday. “Before, they might have thought the election was unimportant — now they’ve changed their minds,” he said. “They realise if they don’t watch out, an anti-democratic party could win.”