For the eighth time in a row since 1990, the Social Democrats (SPD) have won the regional elections in Brandenburg. According to the state electoral authorities, based on the final official preliminary results, the party of Prime Minister Dietmar Woedecke received 30.9 percent, an even better performance than in 2019. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which had long been ahead in the polls, had 29.2 percent of the vote when all the votes were counted. The new party of the Desert Alliance Wagenknecht (BSW), which entered the state for the first time, came in third with 13.5 percent, ahead of the Christian Democrats of the CDU, who received just 12.1 percent, their worst result so far in a regional election in Brandenburg. The Greens, the Left, the liberals of the FDP and the Free Voters failed to pass the 5 percent threshold and did not win a single direct mandate that would have helped them enter the state parliament. Voter turnout in the regional elections in Brandenburg was higher than ever at 72.9 percent.
“It was hard work,” said the outgoing governor and leader of the Social Democrats in Brandenburg, commenting on the first opinion polls that gave the party a one-point lead over the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). “Our goal was to avoid the brown flag of our land (a reference to the Nazi brown shirts still used in Germany to symbolize the far right).” “And we are happy that, as the current data shows, this could be the case,” he added, but noted that we still had to wait a few hours to know the results. Woidke had announced that he would retire if he came in second. Woidke, who has led Brandenburg for 11 years, urged his supporters to be cautious. “We have to be a little patient,” he said, explaining that we had to wait for the count, but then added: “In any case, one thing is clear: we have made a comeback like never before.”
“The East is blue. We are the real winners,” said Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), commenting on the first election results. “The SPD is currently only ahead thanks to tactical votes for Minister-President Dietmar Woedke,” Weidel said. According to the other AfD leader, Tino Chrupala, there is some disappointment with the second place. “We wanted Dietmar Woedke to retire,” Chrupala said, adding that it was still a great result.
CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann spoke of a “bitter defeat” after his party's results. “For weeks, there has been a polarization around whether to vote for the AfD or the SPD with Minister-President Dietmar Wiedke at the helm,” Linnemann told ARD, adding that as a result, many CDU voters had decided: “In this and in this case, I will vote for the SPD.” Linnemann praised Wiedke for putting everything in one basket and winning: “That's what credibility looks like.”
Two million and 100,000 Germans voted today in the regional elections, which are set to be a direct confrontation between Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is coming off a strong showing in Thuringia and Saxony. Scholz’s Social Democrats had hoped to maintain control of their stronghold, and any defeat would be seen as a bad omen for Scholz a year before the federal elections scheduled for September 28, 2025. Scholz lives in Potsdam, the capital of Brandenburg, and German political observers believe his political future could depend on today’s results in Brandenburg.
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