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The far right and far left are poised to make significant gains in state voting on Sunday, possibly affecting the stability of the national government in Berlin.
Sept. 22, 2024, 12:01 a.m. ET
Voters are going to the polls on Sunday for state elections in Brandenburg, the eastern German state that surrounds Berlin like a doughnut, in a regional contest that could affect the stability of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government.
Mr. Scholz’s government has been struggling in recent months as Germans worry about the poor economy and uncontrolled migration and blame his coalition for not solving these problems.
Both the far right and the far left are expected to make significant gains on Sunday, as was the case with elections in two other eastern German states this month, further weakening the grip of the country’s center-left and center-right parties.
Here is what to know about the vote and its possible ramifications.
Why is this election important?
The election in this relatively small state — involving only about 3 percent of Germany’s voters — is being widely watched, even though it does not directly affect Mr. Scholz’s government.
Brandenburg is one of the last two eastern bastions for the chancellor’s center-left Social Democratic Party. And the state’s incumbent governor, Dietmar Woidke, is one of the most popular Social Democrats in the country.
But the far right Alternative for Germany party (widely known as AfD, its initials in German) and the far-left Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht, or B.S.W., are both poised to make significant gains. Polls suggest that the AfD is set to win a plurality of the seats in the statehouse.
