Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) has narrowly beat the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Sunday’s state election in Brandenburg. But the SPD now has a long road ahead to create a governing coalition, where collaboration with the populist Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) may be on the cards.

Brief relief for Scholz’s SPD after win in Brandenburg election

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD narrowly won the state election (Landtagswahl) in Brandenburg on Sunday, taking 30,9 percent of the vote, a 4,7 percentage point increase compared to the 2019 state election.

The AfD came in a very close second with 29,2 percent of votes, up 5,7 percentage points from 2019. Only launched in January 2024, the left-wing populist Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) took 13,5 percent of the vote, outperforming the CDU’s 12,1 percent.

After the AfD managed the first state election win for the far right since WWII in Thuringia on September 2 and the party came second only to the CDU in the Landtagswahl in Saxony on the same day, Sunday's vote in Brandenburg was another much-awaited test for the political appetite in the former East.

The SPD win in Brandenburg is a welcome relief for Olaf Scholz and his governing traffic light coalition, who are currently seeing rock-bottom approval ratings. So out of favour are the party, that the Chancellor was requested not to participate in the Brandenburg campaign, with success being credited to State Premier Dietmar Woidke.

The win is marginal and somewhat reluctant. According to Politico, 75 percent of voters who cast their ballots for the SPD said they did not have a genuine affinity with the party but were doing so to prevent the AfD from gaining power.

While voters were successful in preventing an AfD win, taking 29,2 percent of the vote means the party now has a “blocking minority” which it can use to prevent or delay decisions that require a two-thirds majority.

What are the next steps for the SPD in Brandenburg?

Now that the election has been called, the SPD must consider with whom it will form a governing coalition. The former SPD-CDU-Greens coalition is no longer possible since the Greens did not win the 5 percent of the vote required to enter the state parliament, instead taking 4,1 percent. The Left Party and BVB / Free Voters did not reach the 5 percent hurdle either.

Since the SPD and CDU do not have enough of the vote to form a two-way, so-called Blackberry Coalition, two scenarios are likely - that a minority government is formed or a three-way coalition is created with BSW.

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