Brandenburg election: Will Scholz waver if Woidke falls?
Published: Friday, Sep 20th 2024, 11:10
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Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz will be far away when the first forecasts for the election in the federal state of Brandenburg flash across the screens at party headquarters in Berlin on Sunday.
It will then be 12.00 noon for him. High noon. The Social Democrat politician is attending the United Nations Future Summit in New York, to which all 193 member states have been invited. Germany and Namibia are hosting the event, which has been more than a year in the making, so the German head of government cannot afford to miss it.
A lose-lose situation for Scholz
But perhaps the Chancellor is even quite happy to watch the election results from a safe distance for the time being. After all, Scholz can't really win anything in this election.
If Brandenburg's Minister President Dietmar Woidke achieves his goal and makes the SPD the strongest party after all, ahead of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is currently leading in the polls, then it will be said: He only achieved this because he consistently renounced the chancellor's election campaign support and even positioned himself against the SPD-led coalition government in Berlin in the migration debate.
If Woidke only comes second and then, as announced, leaves it to someone else from the SPD to form a government, Scholz and his divided government will once again be blamed. A lose-lose situation for the chancellor.
Chancellor deep in the polls for months
There is also a third scenario, but according to the latest polls this is only theoretical. It is practically impossible that the SPD will be overtaken by the Christian Democrats (CDU) or the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance (BSW) and lose the post of Minister President.
But second place could also shake up the federal party a year before the regular date for the federal election - and become dangerous for Scholz.
Ever since the SPD's disastrous results in the European elections and the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia - where the AfD did very well - the chancellor has been considered to be under attack. His personal poll ratings have been plummeting for months.
In the latest ZDF political barometer, 65% rate his work as rather poor and only 32% as positive. The SPD is polling at a paltry 14 to 16 percent, while the CDU/CSU is stable at more than double that. The fact that resentment has not yet broken out is mainly due to the election campaign in Brandenburg.
The K-question is already being asked
However, Franz Müntefering, of all people, the most popular former party leader still alive, has recently said what many people in the SPD are thinking: the question of who will run for chancellor in the next general election is open, he told the "Tagesspiegel".
And he praised Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who is well ahead of Scholz in all politician rankings. The latter does not present himself as a "fine minister", but is "a mayor type", and that is his strength. "Pistorius comes across as natural and is therefore in the running for important offices."
A few days later, Munich's Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter was the first prominent local politician to come out of the woodwork. "If someone like Boris Pistorius has such a good reputation, the SPD must also think about whether he is the best choice for the chancellor candidacy or whether to go into the race with the incumbent chancellor," he told the "Tagesspiegel".
Pistorius does not want to be the "messiah"
The debate has already begun. It could pick up after the Brandenburg elections if Woidke loses. Even the defense minister's deflection is unlikely to change that. "The belief that (...) someone could be the messiah or one, I think that's a misconception," said Pistorius at a "Die Zeit" event in Hamburg on Thursday evening. He did not want to speculate on scenarios in the event of Woidke's defeat.
FDP and Greens face further electoral setbacks
The other two "traffic light" parties are also facing a difficult election. The Greens must once again fear for their re-entry into a state parliament: Polls put them at the five percent mark - in the last state election they still achieved a double-digit result.
However, the continuation of the sluggish "traffic light" coalition has not yet been called into question - even though party leader Omid Nouripour recently used the terms "transitional coalition" and "transitional solution" to make it very clear what prospects he sees for the coalition of convenience with the SPD and, above all, the FDP (Liberals). However, they want to hold out until the next general election.
With poll ratings of four percent at federal level, the FDP can hardly have any interest in new elections. However, the Liberals are particularly displeased with the "traffic light".
After the elections in Thuringia and Saxony, where they only achieved 1.1 and 0.9 percent respectively, it was not only the usual suspect Wolfgang Kubicki, deputy party leader, who openly questioned the continuation of the alliance. Other members of the Bundestag, such as Gyde Jensen, the deputy leader of the parliamentary group, who is not exactly known as a troublemaker, also joined in.
Linder speaks of the "fall of decisions"
It is already clear that every single "traffic light" party will focus even more on itself after the Brandenburg elections. Even the SPD, which for a long time saw itself in the role of moderator between the Greens and the FDP, now wants to abandon this role completely. The Bundestag election campaign really begins on Sunday evening at 6.00 pm. Compromises on content will then become even more difficult than they already are.
And there are certainly enough issues of conflict in the government, from migration policy, the budget and the growth initiative to pensions and the law on collective bargaining - and therefore perhaps still potential breaking points for the coalition. FDP party leader Christian Lindner speaks of an "autumn of decisions" - and flirts with a premature end to the "traffic light".
Sometimes courage means staying in a coalition despite controversy, he told the Rheinische Post. "But sometimes courage also means taking risks in order to create new political momentum."
The probationary period begins for Merz
The CDU/CSU - Christian Democrats and Christian Socialists (CSU) - can go into the Brandenburg elections relatively relaxed. CDU leader Friedrich Merz has created facts - and clarified the long-standing K-question with CSU leader Markus Söder just a few days before election day: Merz does it.
The separate approval of the Union committees on the day after the Brandenburg elections is just a formality. But the time of the acid test begins immediately afterwards. Will the truce between Merz and Söder hold? Doubts are justified.
The fact that CDU lead candidate Jan Redmann has little chance of becoming Minister President in Brandenburg is considered internally to be priced in. Even if the state party were to finish in fourth place behind the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance, they in the CDU believe that this would hardly damage Merz, the newly elected candidate for chancellor.
Then the difficult formation of governments in Saxony and Thuringia could cause turbulence and cause Merz to falter.
Only Hamburg votes before the Bundestag election
Incidentally, the view of the federal election after Brandenburg is quite unobstructed. There is only one state election left until September 28, 2025, and it will take place in Scholz's hometown: Hamburg will elect a new parliament on March 2. However, the significance of federal politics in Berlin is considered to be low. The Hanseatic city has its own laws, they say.
©Keystone/SDA
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