If the AfD win Sunday’s vote, it would be only the second time the party had achieved this in a state election since it was founded. Earlier this month, it won its first state election in Thuringia.
Social Democrats slightly behind far-right AfD ahead of Brandenburg election
Admin I Friday, September 20, 2024
BRANDENBURG – Days before a crucial election in Brandenburg, the east German state surrounding Berlin, a new survey has indicated the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has a slim lead over its rival.
A poll released on Thursday by public broadcaster ZDF shows the AfD on 28%, ahead of the previously dominant centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) on 27%.
According to the ZDF poll, the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) would achieve 14%, ahead of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, a new party which combines left-wing social policy with a hardline stance on migration, with 13% of the vote.
The Greens, the hard-left Die Linke (The Left), and the local Brandenburg United Civic Movements (BVB)/Free Voters alliance all polled under the 5% threshold and are therefore at risk of not returning to parliament.
If the AfD won Sunday’s vote, it would be only the second time the party had achieved this in a state election since it was founded. Earlier this month, it won its first state election in Thuringia.
The CDU is currently in coalition with the SPD and the Greens in Brandenburg, which has an SPD premier. Mainstream German political parties have been refusing to work with the AfD, leading to a situation where otherwise political rivals form coalitions.
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Domestic intelligence services in Brandenburg categorize the AfD in the state as a suspected right-wing extremist group.
The ZDF poll surveyed 1,118 eligible voters in Brandenburg online and via phone on Wednesday and Thursday, with a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The AfD had also been shown ahead in previous surveys. In the ARD-Deutschlandtrend poll, the SPD were just behind the AfD with 26% to 27%. The AfD would achieve 28% of the vote ahead of SPD’s 25%, according to a survey by the opinion research institute INSA on behalf of the local newspapers Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung, Märkische Oderzeitung and Lausitzer Rundschau.
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