The German chancellor appears to have narrowly avoided humiliation after opinion polls suggested his party had successfully repelled the far right in his state.
The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by Olaf Scholz The Green Party won Sunday’s regional election in its stronghold of Brandenburg by just one or two percentage points, according to exit polls by the two main public broadcasters.
The AfD had a chance of winning in the state, which has been ruled by the Social Democrats since German reunification in 1990.
But after voting ended at 18:00 (16:00 GMT), the SPD was projected to win 31-32%, while the AfD was on 29-30%.
The election, which took place on the outskirts of Berlin, was closely watched after the Alternative for Germany party became the first far-right party to win an election. Winning local elections in Germany since World War IIIn the eastern state of Thuringia, on September 1.
The party also came in a close second in Saxony on the same day.
The AfD’s victory in last Sunday’s election would have dealt a major blow to Schulz’s hopes of winning a second term in Germany’s federal elections next year.
It would also have been awkward, given that he lived in the state capital, Potsdam.
Scholz is facing a sharp decline in opinion polls and internal conflicts in his struggling coalition government.
But Brandenburg’s nearly two million voters may have given him a rare political lifeline.
Dietmar Woedke, the state’s popular Social Democratic premier, has largely refrained from campaigning with Scholz and is critical of the behavior and policies of his ruling coalition.
Meanwhile, Scholz earlier this month called on other parties to Far-right Alternative for Germany party barred from office By maintaining what is called a firewall against it.
He described the results in Thuringia and Saxony as “bitter” and “worrying”.
“The AfD is harming Germany. It is weakening the economy, dividing society and destroying the reputation of our country,” he told Reuters earlier.
The AfD, which is officially classified as an “extremist” party in some states, is unlikely to enter any regional governments because all other parties have refused to work with it.
With support from young people, the party continues to capitalize on concerns about the economic slowdown, immigration and the war in Ukraine — concerns that resonate strongly in former communist East Germany.
The party’s win of nearly a third of the vote in Thuringia shocked the political establishment, putting it nine points ahead of the conservative Christian Democratic Union and far ahead of Germany’s three ruling parties.
The AfD is second in national opinion polls, with federal elections just a year away.
“Without us, a stable government can no longer be formed at all,” co-leader Alice Weidel claimed.
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