Brandenburg’s parties blame the federal government for the AfD’s rise

By Michael Sauerbier

The SPD has ruled Brandenburg since 1990. In the RBB survey it has now fallen from 26 percent in the last election to 20 percent. Twelve points behind the AfD, which gained almost 9 percent. And next year there will be a state election.

“The survey reflects the mood in Germany,” says SPD General Secretary David Kolesnyk. “Whether it’s the heating law or migration. This is having an impact on Brandenburg – even though the state is not in control.” Potsdam’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) has so far protested in vain to the federal government.

“You can feel disappointment and anger among people everywhere,” states CDU General Secretary Gordon Hoffmann, “that the federal government is not addressing the burning problems. Municipalities are no longer dealing with the consequences of migration. People are wondering what else they can heat with and how they will pay for it.”

The AfD, on the other hand, is cheering. State leader Birgit Bessin, whom the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution calls “right-wing extremist” like the majority of Brandenburg’s members, says: “Anyone who doesn’t respect their own people and drives our economy into the wall will get paid in the upcoming elections.”

“The AfD has no solutions to the problems,” says Potsdam politics professor Gideon Botsch, “it just collects the frustration of the disappointed. It benefits from the fact that municipalities have little opportunity to participate in the mandatory task of accommodating refugees.”

The SPD now wants to “explain to the local people that Brandenburg is about hospitals, new businesses and local transport.” The CDU wants to continue fighting for border controls and reject the heating law in the Bundesrat. Hoffmann: “We have to talk about things that go wrong. Because otherwise they will be occupied by the AfD.”