State election: Brandenburg election: Will Scholz falter if Woidke falls?

Chancellor Olaf Scholz will be far away when the first forecasts for the election in Brandenburg appear on the screens at the party headquarters in Berlin on Sunday. For him, it will be 12 noon. High noon. The SPD 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 planned for more than a year, and the German head of government cannot miss it.

Lose-lose situation for Scholz

But perhaps the Chancellor is happy to first look at the election results from a safe distance. After all, Scholz has nothing to gain from this election.

If Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke achieves his goal and makes the SPD the strongest party ahead of the AfD, which is currently leading in the polls, then it will be said that he only managed this because he consistently renounced the Chancellor’s campaign support and even positioned himself against the SPD-led federal traffic light coalition in the migration debate.

If Woidke only comes in second place and then leaves the formation of a government to someone else from the SPD, as he announced, Scholz and his divided government will once again be blamed. A lose-lose situation for the Chancellor.

Chancellor has been deep in the poll cellar for months

There is also a third scenario, but according to the latest polls, this is only a theoretical one. It is practically impossible that the SPD will be overtaken by the CDU or the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) coalition and lose the post of prime minister. But second place could also shake up the federal party a year before the regular date for the federal election – and be dangerous for Scholz.

Since the SPD’s disastrous results in the European elections and in the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, the Chancellor is considered to be on the ropes. His personal poll ratings have been at rock bottom for months. In the current ZDF political barometer, 65 percent rate his work as rather poor and only 32 percent as positive. In the polls for the federal election, the SPD is at a meager 14 to 16 percent, while the CDU/CSU is stable at more than double that. The fact that discontent has not yet broken out is mainly due to consideration for the election campaign in Brandenburg.

The K question is already being asked

However, Franz Müntefering, the most popular living ex-party leader, recently expressed what many in the SPD are thinking: The question of who will be the chancellor candidate in the next federal election is open, he told the “Tagesspiegel”. And he praised Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who is ranked number one in all political rankings, far ahead of Scholz. He does not present himself as a “fine minister”, but is “a mayor type”, and that is his strength. “This makes Pistorius seem natural and is therefore being considered for important offices.”

A few days later, the first prominent local politician, Munich’s mayor Dieter Reiter, came out of hiding. “If someone like Boris Pistorius has such a reputation, the SPD must also think about whether he is the best choice for the candidacy for chancellor or whether they should run with the incumbent chancellor,” he told the “Tagesspiegel”.

Pistorius does not want to be the “Messiah”

The debate has already begun. After the Brandenburg election, it could intensify if Woidke loses. Even the defense minister’s attempts to downplay the situation will not change that. “The belief that (…) one person could be the Messiah or not, I think that is a fallacy,” said Pistorius on Thursday evening at an event organized by “Zeit” in Hamburg. He did not want to speculate on scenarios in the event of Woidke’s defeat.

FDP and Greens face further electoral defeats

The other two traffic light parties are also going into a difficult election. The Greens must once again fear that they will be re-elected to a state parliament: polls put them at the five percent mark – in the last state election they achieved a double-digit result. The continuation of the sluggish traffic light coalition has not yet been called into question – even though party leader Omid Nouripour recently made it very clear what prospects he sees for the alliance of convenience with the SPD and especially the FDP by using the terms “transitional coalition” and “transitional solution”. But the Greens want to hold out until the next federal election.

The FDP, with poll ratings of four percent at the federal level, can hardly have any interest in new elections. However, the discontent with the traffic light coalition is particularly great among the Liberals. After the elections in Thuringia and Saxony, where it only received 1.1 and 0.9 percent, it was not just the usual suspect Wolfgang Kubicki, deputy party leader, who openly questioned the continuation of the alliance. Other members of the Bundestag, such as the deputy parliamentary group leader Gyde Jensen, who is not exactly known for being a troublemaker, also agreed.

Linder speaks of the “autumn of decisions”

One thing is already certain: every single traffic light party will focus even more on itself after the Brandenburg election. Even the SPD, which for a long time saw itself as a moderator between the Greens and the FDP, now wants to give this up completely. The federal election campaign really begins on Sunday evening at 6 p.m. Compromises on content will then be even more difficult than they already are.

And there are certainly enough conflicting issues in the traffic light coalition, from migration policy to the budget and the growth initiative to pensions and the collective bargaining agreement law – and thus perhaps still potential breaking points for the coalition. FDP party leader Christian Lindner speaks of an “autumn of decisions” – and flirts with an early end to the traffic light coalition. 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 dynamics.”

Merz’s probationary period begins

The Union can go into the Brandenburg election relatively relaxed. CDU leader Friedrich Merz has created facts – and with CSU leader Markus Söder, a few days before election day, he has clarified the K question that has been hanging in the air for a long time. Merz is doing it. The separate approval of the Union bodies on the day after the Brandenburg election is just a formality. But immediately after that, the time of the test begins. Will the truce between Merz and Söder hold? Doubts are justified.

The fact that CDU top candidate Jan Redmann has little chance of becoming Prime Minister in Brandenburg is considered to be priced in internally. Even if the state party were to come fourth behind the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance, that would hardly damage the newly elected Chancellor candidate Merz, they believe in the CDU. The difficult formation of governments in Saxony and Thuringia could cause turbulence and put Merz in a difficult position.

Only Hamburg votes before the federal election

After Brandenburg, the view of the federal election is pretty clear. There is only one state election left until September 28, 2025, and that will take place in Scholz’s hometown: Hamburg will elect a new parliament on March 2. However, the federal political significance is considered low in Berlin. The Hanseatic city has its own laws, it is said.