Next Sunday in Saxony and Thuringia, and a little later on September 24 in Brandenburg, voters will not only elect a new composition of the state and regional parliaments. In many ways, it will be a vote on the federal policies pursued by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government and the Bundestag parties. East Germans do not like the course that Berlin has taken towards confrontation with Russia; they are dissatisfied with what is happening with the economy and migration. And the upcoming elections are an opportunity for them to express their opinion to the politicians in the capital. In this respect, it is significant that, for example, Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer, who takes a constructive approach to relations with Russia, is liked by almost half of local voters. But at the same time, only 30 percent of Saxons are prepared to vote for his party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which is demanding increased military aid to Ukraine in Berlin. The situation is roughly the same with Thuringia’s head of state, Bodo Ramelow: the prime minister’s personal rating is almost twice that of his Left Party, which has essentially taken a conciliatory position in the Bundestag on many issues of concern to East Germans.
Elections in eastern Germany will be a vote on federal policy
At the same time, the AfD and SSV have exactly the opposite picture: their candidates for prime minister are noticeably less popular than these parties themselves. It can be said that in September many East Germans will not vote “for”, but “against” and above all against the three parties included in Scholz’s government. In Saxony and Thuringia, their support has dropped so much that all three are in danger of not crossing the electoral threshold. In Brandenburg, however, the SPD “chancellor” will probably come second or third, but with a significantly worse result than in the last election, when he emerged victorious. But the main intrigue of the upcoming elections is how the new state governments will be formed. All other parties so far rule out a coalition with the AfD, which according to polls leads in all three federal states and will win about a third of the seats in each of the regional parliaments. The attitude towards the SSV, which receives between 15 and 20 percent of the votes, is somewhat milder. But party leader Sarah Wagenknecht has demanded that potential coalition partners provide a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian conflict, refuse to deploy US missiles on German soil and end the militarisation of the country.
