Paradoxical Brandenburg: Although the economy is doing better than elsewhere, Prime Minister Woidke and the SPD are threatened with a slap in the state elections in the fall. Woidke is now also distancing himself from Berlin.
“So, what’s wrong?” Dietmar Woidke, Prime Minister of Brandenburg, stands at 1.96 meters in front of a group of farmers. Around 30 came with their tractors. They demonstrate in front of a public consultation of the SPD parliamentary group in Forst.
“We wanted to remind people of our problems again,” says the spokesman. “We’ve already done something,” answers Woidke. He sided with the farmers early on and didn’t just point to Berlin: in the morning, his cabinet decided to extend the so-called flower strip program and compensation payments for disadvantaged soils. It’s about a little more than 20 million euros from the state treasury.
The money would only flow from 2026 or 2027. Until then, both aids are still running. But the farmers thank them in front of the camera. Now all that remains is to reverse the cut in agricultural diesel and reduce bureaucracy. Woidke promises to continue to support both demands and then goes to the public consultation in a visibly good mood.
Home game in Forst
The SPD parliamentary group has invited people to a “balance sheet tour”. The start takes place in the educational and cultural center of Forst in Lausitz.
If the current surveys are anything to go by, the outcome can hardly be rosy: there are state elections in September. The SPD is currently around 20 percent – six percentage points less than in the 2019 election and at least ten behind the AfD. The CDU is breathing down her neck.
At least the hall in Forst is full. Some of the more than a hundred listeners, including local politicians and farmers, have to stand. Parliamentary group leader Daniel Keller, 37, explains what the SPD is about. What is needed is a “state capable of acting”. The credo is: “Stability and security.”
An image film makes it clear who embodies it. Woidke can be seen in it more than a dozen times, Keller appears a few times, the other deputies only twice.
Woidke is in his eleventh year as Prime Minister. At that time he took over a red-red coalition, and since 2019 the SPD has ruled with the CDU and the Greens.
Woidke comes home in Forst. He was born here in 1961 and lives here again today. His wife Susanne sits in the audience. He addresses the room as “you” and will do most of the talking. The 18 parliamentary group meetings not only move across Brandenburg, but also on the border of the election campaign.
cosmopolitanism for Skilled immigration
Woidke has good news for Lausitz. There should be one in Cottbus University medicine emerges. The state government’s plan for this is progressing, as is the structural change in the coal region.
A new Deutsche Bahn factory has just opened in Cottbus. At the coal company LEAG, the expansion of wind power and solar systems is making massive progress. A new economic sector is growing with the battery industry. “The people of Brandenburg will continue to get well-paid industrial jobs,” said Woidke.
In order for structural change to succeed, skilled workers are needed. They are missing in many corners. Woidke says: “It won’t work without people from abroad.” And that’s why Brandenburg needs “cosmopolitanism and tolerance.” Woidke also conveys this to the outside world. In recent weeks he has taken part in demonstrations against right-wing extremism.
Germany’s boom country
The latter are intended to prevent the AfD from gaining power in Germany. Woidke has spoken out against a ban. He wants to beat the party in terms of content. His strongest argument should be economic development.
Under Woidke, the economy grew weaker than the German average for a long time. But since 2019, Brandenburg has been an overperformer. In the first half of 2023, companies increased their GDP by six percent to – more than in any other federal state. The Tesla factory in Grünheide and its suppliers are considered to be the driving force behind development.
This has so far had no measurable influence on the survey results in Brandenburg. AfD state leader Birgit Bessin told Woidke that he could “now reserve moving vans” for the move out of the State Chancellery.
At a distance from the traffic lights
Woidke identified the Ampel performance in Berlin as the reason for the mood. He recently called the federal trend “a hurricane against us”, the ongoing traffic light dispute “destroying democracy” and the heating law a “communicative disaster”.
The agricultural diesel debate is also not the first in which he distances himself from the federal government. In retrospect, Woidke assesses the recent increase in citizens’ money as too high. During the asylum debate, he called for controls at the border with Poland until his party colleague, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, gave in.
When it comes to the coal phase-out, Woidke is sticking to the coal compromise, the phase-out in 2038. He rejects bringing things forward to 2030 or earlier, as the Greens in the state and federal government favor, and as the traffic light coalition agreement also aims for. “It’s all very naive the way it’s being discussed,” says Woidke in Forst.
Further south, in CDU-governed Saxony, people are happy to have a like-minded person in Woidke on many controversial issues. The Brandenburg CDU, on the other hand, wants to have identified Woidke’s weak point.
“Jumping between sticking to the traffic lights and scolding them doesn’t exactly ensure security and stability,” explained Secretary General Gordon Hoffmann. Trust cannot be regained this way. In other words: If the AfD were to win the state elections, then from the CDU’s perspective it would also be due to Woidke’s actions.
Weaknesses of the competition
Five years ago, the SPD and AfD were neck and neck in surveys for a long time. In the end, Woidke’s incumbent bonus – and with it his party – overtook the competition. The fact that Woidke could also make the difference in 2024 is also due to the other applicants.
The AfD is so divided that the list for the state elections was recently postponed by two months. CDU candidate Jan Redmann has so far hardly gained any popularity compared to his Thuringian counterpart Mario Voigt.
The Left Party, which was once strong in Brandenburg, is in single digits in surveys. Unlike in Saxony and Thuringia, the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance has not yet been able to present any familiar faces.
He pulls Incumbent bonus again?
In any case, Woidke himself wants to prevent the Berlin traffic light from becoming a decisive factor in the election and is relying on himself. Upon request from tagesschau.de he says: “We will make it clear that this is about Brandenburg.” Political stability is ultimately the basis for economic and social stability. The country should “remain in good hands”.
The fact that the people of Brandenburg will only elect their state parliament on September 22nd, three weeks after Saxony and Thuringia, could play into Woidke’s hands: the more complicated the majorities there are, the more voters could rely on security. At least that’s what some in the SPD hope.