Far-right AfD wins Mecklenburg election, Left triumphs in Berlin

On Sunday, elections were held in two German federal states, and the results dealt a serious blow to the ruling party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz. According to an exit poll prepared for public broadcaster ZDF, the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) won in the northern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, taking 38% of the vote. The Social Democrats (SPD) came second with 36.5%.

Chancellor Merz's ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is teetering on the edge of even entering the state parliament — exit polling puts it at just 5% of the vote, which would be the party's worst result in its history. The Left Party, the Greens and the BSW are polling similarly, at around five percent each. A second poll for broadcaster ARD showed a comparable picture.

A duel between the Social Democrats and the AfD

Merz himself, immediately after polls closed, called the CDU's result in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania "a catastrophe." "There's no way to sugarcoat this," the chancellor said, adding that his party "fought hard but was crushed by the fierce standoff between the SPD and the AfD."

The final stretch of the campaign was indeed dominated by the contest between the state's Social Democratic premier, Manuela Schwesig, and the AfD. According to a political scientist at the University of Rostock, the vote effectively turned into a referendum on whether Schwesig or the AfD should govern the state going forward. Over the past year, the SPD has significantly narrowed the gap with the far right: as recently as last autumn the party was polling around 19%, but it has now won more than 35% of the vote. The price of this bitter rivalry was a collapse in support for other parties, above all the CDU.

AfD co-chair Tino Chrupalla described the result as a mandate to govern and called on other parties to stop ruling out cooperation with his party in advance. "We want to solve the country's problems, not build firewalls," he said, referring to the so-called "firewall" policy of refusing coalitions with the AfD.

Berlin chooses the Left

Voting also took place in Berlin the same day. According to the ZDF exit poll, the post-communist Left Party won there with 26% of the vote — twice its result in the 2023 election. Second place went to the CDU, which had previously run the city, with 20% (a loss of more than 8 percentage points compared to the last election). The Greens came third with 15.5%, the AfD fourth with 13.5%, and the SPD — which had governed the capital almost uninterrupted for nearly two decades — fifth, with just 12%. The left-conservative BSW could also make it into the city parliament, with around 5% of the vote. A second poll for ARD showed a similar picture, only swapping the AfD and the Greens.

The Left Party's success in Berlin stems mainly from its focus on affordable housing and social guarantees. According to a survey by the Infratest dimap institute, 37% of Berliners believe the Left Party understands the affordable housing issue best — compared with just 8% for the CDU. On social justice, the gap is 32% versus 7%. Still, a strong result doesn't automatically translate into support for a Left-led government: 46% of Berliners surveyed approve of a coalition between the Left, the Greens and the SPD, but only 30% want the Left to lead the city's future senate.

What's next for Merz

Sunday's results spell further trouble for Chancellor Merz. Rumors about a possible replacement at the helm of his party have been circulating for months and grew noticeably louder after the September 6 election in Saxony-Anhalt. That said, the outcome doesn't mean the AfD will now head the government in the new state: according to preliminary counts, the party won't have a majority in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania even in alliance with the BSW. A narrow coalition of the SPD, the Left and the Greens looks more likely, provided all three parties clear the threshold to enter parliament.

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz