Five takeaways from the elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin: Five Takeaways from the Double Election

What have the elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin produced? The fringes are stronger, the SPD could face a leadership debate, and the AfD is discovering a new feel-good sound.

1. Electoral victories at the fringes

The trend of past elections continues: gains are being made primarily at the fringes, with the AfD and the Left. The centrist parties, by contrast, are losing ground.

As in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD has been highly successful in mobilising non-voters, but according to preliminary data from infratest dimap, it has also won nearly 50,000 former SPD voters and around 30,000 former Union supporters in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern alone.

The Left in Berlin is also drawing former non-voters to the polls. But it is also picking up around 53,000 former Green voters and approximately 37,000 votes from the SPD camp.

All of this makes coalition-building more difficult. All other parties rule out alliances with the AfD. The Left in Berlin is viewed very critically by the SPD, a potential junior partner. The bridges that need to be built are becoming ever longer and more unstable.

The fringes are winning, but whether they will govern anywhere after this autumn and, for example, help shape the Bundesrat, remains questionable. The AfD has so far fallen short of enough votes in Saxony-Anhalt. The Left in Berlin is accepting the mandate to form a government, but within its own ranks there are plenty of young new members who want neither compromise nor governmental responsibility.

2. Schwesig on course to become SPD's chancellor candidate

She did not overtake the AfD in the final stretch, but the SPD only narrowly lost out to her in the northeast. Manuela Schwesig has staged a comeback campaign — one entirely focused on her personally and peppered with sharp criticism of the federal government's policies.

Who holds the power in the SPD now? The two party co-chairs, Lars Klingbeil and Bärbel Bas, are under pressure, worn down by their dual roles straddling party and government office. On election night, Schwesig picks up in her ARD interview exactly where she had identified her party's problem during the campaign: the federal government must "ask itself self-critically whether it has the right approach on all issues."

On her role within the party, she says: "I stand for the issues we have always stood for." This sounds as though she represents a kind of original social democracy — as if she still has in mind voter segments, such as working-class communities, that others in her party have long since lost.

The conclusion after this election night: if Schwesig wants it, she has the best chance of securing a future chancellorship candidacy. The other successful SPD minister-president, Anke Rehlinger, is said repeatedly within party circles to be reluctant to make the leap from Saarland to Berlin. Schwesig, it is said, would dare to make that move.

Would her first step be to become SPD party leader? Schwesig could now reach for the party chairmanship. But as party leader she would also sit on the Berlin coalition committee and would have to support unpopular compromises. It may be that Schwesig currently considers it wiser to remain in Schwerin for the time being. Whether the SPD will have the polling numbers in future to even announce a chancellor candidacy is another question entirely.

3. The AfD discovers the feel-good factor

For a long time, AfD politicians relied primarily on anger as an attention machine, on ever-new provocations and shrill tones. In Saxony-Anhalt and now in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a new type is succeeding like never before: Ulrich Siegmund, once a sales representative for room fragrances, and Leif-Erik Holm, a former radio presenter, are considerably smoother than previous AfD leading politicians.

"I love to sell," Siegmund once said in an entrepreneurship magazine. He addresses almost everyone informally, handing out nicknames. Everything is easy, there is no extremism here — that is the message.

Holm comes across in his Instagram videos as though he is hosting the AfD like the next summer hit. Behind both of them lurk hardliners with far-right pasts. But these figures are less visible when the lead candidate is smiling in a relaxed manner — and that is deliberate.

This stands in stark contrast to the manner of, for example, party leader Alice Weidel, who comes across as permanently angry, cold, sharp and condescending. How is the party dealing with the fact that a different type of politician is now apparently mobilising the AfD's full potential right down to every village?

It is possible that a division of labour will emerge: feel-good politics for one target group, anger and doom for another. But it is also conceivable that the considerably higher popularity ratings that Siegmund, for example, achieved during the campaign will, in the medium term, come into competition with Weidel's communication style.

**4. Is the BSW harmed by its closeness to the AfD?**

The BSW is again turning this election night into a nail-biter over the five-percent threshold. In Berlin, the party was also frequently not on course for the state parliament in earlier polls. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, by contrast, it was still clearly in double figures one to two years ago. This autumn, the challenge was to establish the BSW across the board in eastern Germany — and thus secure further attention for a party that has no seats in the Bundestag.

The election results are now significantly worse than earlier peak polling figures. What happened? According to infratest dimap, 69 percent of eligible voters in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern say the alliance is "too preoccupied with internal party disputes."

However, the closeness to the AfD is not harming the party as much as some may have expected: 46 percent of eligible voters say they find it "good that the BSW is willing to cooperate with the AfD." That is more percentage points than the AfD and BSW together achieved in the north-east. Apparently, the internal party squabbling is considerably more damaging to Sahra Wagenknecht's party project than signalling towards the far right.

**5. Welcome to the influencer democracy**

After five state elections this year, they have definitively become a factor: influencers who help shape debates not by virtue of an important party office, but thanks to their follower counts.

One example: after the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, CDU influencer Clara von Nathusius, who has nearly 100,000 Instagram followers, appeared on Bericht aus Berlin and declared: "No more elections can be won with this chancellor."

The whole thing, spoken so openly by a woman who otherwise serves as treasurer of the Young Union, is said to have sent shockwaves through a number of CDU circles.

Influencers represent an opportunity for their party circles: they break messages down, they hit the right tone for young users. But they also make debates more breathless — and raise new questions around authority and party hierarchies.