You have to go to the edge, literally, of Germany, in the middle of the Brandenburg plain and in a village a few kilometers from the river that marks the border with Poland, to investigate the magic formula that obsesses all moderate parties in Europe. . How to defeat the extreme right?
In Naundorf, 236 inhabitants, two closed taverns and a ghostly air of a medieval town. wild westor rather the far eastGerman, he grew up and lived as the man of the moment in the politics of this country. Dietmar Woidke is 62 years old, is 1.96 meters tall – no profile in the German press forgets this detail – and is a social democrat at a time when this brand is not the best to present in the elections here. And yet, on September 22, Woidke, president of Brandenburg since 2013, defeated the extreme right in the elections of this federal state on the territory of the former German Democratic Republic. They achieved it after coming back from more than 10 points throughout the summer. And he avoided what seemed inevitable: the victory of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a land in which the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) has dominated since the reunification of the two Germanys in 1990.
“People have chosen him to prevent the other party from winning,” says, referring to AfD, a young man who, like many in these regions of emptied Germany, has gone to work in a big city. In his case, the capital, Berlin. His name is Markus, he prefers not to give his last name, he is 22 years old and on weekends he returns to Naundorf. He is a hunter, and in the truck in which he carries his hunting tools, he says that Woidke is a “kind, pleasant” man, someone who likes contact with people, listening to their problems. “The people did not choose the Social Democratic Party,” he emphasizes. “She chose him.”
The SPD won 30.9% of the vote and 32 deputies in Brandenburg. AfD, 29.2% and 30 deputies. The new populist left of Sahra Wagenknecht, 13.5% and 14 deputies. The conservatives of the CDU, 12.1% and 12 seats. The result is a success for the far right, but mitigated by Woidke’s victory.
The first key of the Woidke formula: a personalist campaign. It was about distancing himself from the policies of the federal government, in which his party, the SPD, is the largest partner. And of the unpopular chancellor, the also social democrat Olaf Scholz, whom his own party and candidate in Brandenburg practically declared persona non grata during the campaign. He was not seen either at the rallies or on the posters.
“Woidke is very popular in Brandenburg, and this differentiates him from Olaf Scholz,” summarizes political scientist Philipp Thomeczek, from the University of Potsdam, the state capital. “He is someone who comes from the countryside, speaks like someone from the countryside and gives the image of someone from the countryside. In a land There are hardly any big cities like Brandenburg, and in most regions people are like him and can identify with him.”
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And here is the second key: a candidate with local roots, son of this mining and agricultural corner. Without being charismatic or populist—he is a career politician with three decades of experience—he knows how to speak to voters, from the left and the right.
David Kolesnyk, general secretary of the SPD in Brandenburg, maintains that, if the AfD manages to obtain a third of the votes, it is due to discomfort with the German situation, and the global one, more than because of the situation in Brandenburg, prosperous by eastern standards. and with economic successes such as the installation of a Tesla electric car factory that employs 12,000 people. “It was clear that the campaign had to be taken to the local level,” Kolesnyk tells Morning Express. “Here we voted on Brandenburg, not on world issues or the federal government.”
Connection with the voter
There is, in this connection between the candidate and the voter, something characteristic of the former GDR, a columnist from Die Zeit. The article cited sociologist Steffen Mau, who speaks of “different participation societies” to refer to East and West Germany. in his book Ungleich vereint (Unequally United), Mau explains that in the East “classical parties have weak roots and their contribution to the development of a democratic culture is small.” Scholz and Woidke’s SPD has 6,027 members in Brandenburg, a landwith 2.5 million inhabitants. At the other end of the country, in the land western Saarland, with one million inhabitants, the SPD has more than double its membership, 14,716.
The third key in Woidke formula the newspaper summarized it Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “Woidke is a conservative social democrat.” Kolesnyk, general secretary of the Brandenburg SPD, clarifies: “He is someone who is clearly on the side of the police and the federal army, someone who is clearly on the side of the people who go to work and, at the same time, supports the people who “They need state help.” “It’s about supporting and demanding, not just supporting,” he adds, using two similar words in German, fördernand fordern. On immigration, the president of Brandenburg is one of the standard-bearers of Scholz’s heavy-handed policy. “The immigration policy of the last 10 years must be reexamined,” he said in an interview. In Germany, the idea is advancing that, if moderate parties want to defeat the extreme right, they must address the fears that fuel the discontent vote.
“Dietmar Woidke has taken up our issues,” smiles the recently re-elected AfD MP Steffen Kubitzki in his office in the electoral district bordering Poland. He exaggerates, because social democratic policies are aligned with the EU and are far from those of the extreme right, but he does not hide his satisfaction: “He has surpassed me on the right.”
In the direct election in this district, which in the German system is combined with the list election, Kubitzki won by only seven votes over Woidke. He attributes his success to the fact that, unlike other more radical leaders of his party, he is a calm man, who avoids stridency since, like Woidke, he knows the terrain: “I am one of them.”
Political scientist Thomeczek warns that Woidke’s victory has a price. And it has been left with almost no potential allies to govern. Many green voters and some from the CDU gave their vote to stop the AfD and, as a result, the Greens have been left out of Parliament and the conservatives have lost seats. The social democrat is condemned to deal with the populist Wagenknecht. If there were new elections, the extreme right could strengthen. The Woidke formula It has limits.
40 kilometers from Peitz, in Naundorf, young Markus talks about Woidke, his virtues and defects. He believes that he has abandoned the defense of coal, essential to the identity of this region, and he does not quite believe that it is true, as has been said, that he is a hunter, one of those traits that are supposed to connect him with the town.
“Having a hunting permit does not mean hunting,” says Markus. And, when asked about his vote, he responds: “I didn’t vote for him.”
