Zwischen Angst und Hoffnung: Was Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Berlin über Deutschland erzählen
Last Sunday, Germany gave two very different answers.
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the AfD became the strongest party. In Berlin, the Left Party won. In Schwerin, election night was dominated by fear of the far right taking its next major step. In Berlin, by contrast, something emerged that I had almost stopped expecting after the past few weeks: hope.
Not carefree hope. Not an all-clear. But visible proof that anger, uncertainty, and the desire for change do not inevitably have to end up with the AfD.
After the state election in Saxony-Anhalt, I wrote about how much Germany’s political development frightens me. Two weeks later, that fear has not diminished. The AfD has now also won Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. At the same time, Berlin shows that another answer is possible.
Perhaps that is the most important lesson from this election Sunday.
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: The AfD Wins, but It Does Not Govern
The result from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is frighteningly clear. The AfD received 38.2 percent. In 2021, it was 16.7 percent. Within five years, it has therefore more than doubled its result. The SPD of Minister-President Manuela Schwesig received 35.5 percent. It is followed by the Left Party with 6.5 percent and the Greens with 5.7 percent. The CDU failed to clear the five-percent threshold with 4.9 percent, as did the BSW with 4.8 percent. The FDP fell to 1.0 percent. Voter turnout rose from 70.8 to 78.1 percent. [1]
The new state parliament has 71 seats. The AfD receives 32, the SPD 29, and the Left Party and Greens five each. An absolute majority requires 36 votes. [1]
The constituency map has also changed dramatically. The AfD won 22 of the 36 direct mandates. In 2021, it had won just one. The SPD fell from 34 to 14 direct mandates. The CDU also lost its previously only direct mandate. [2]
This is not protest taking place only at the margins of society. This is a party that received almost four out of ten valid second votes. It has penetrated deeply into the state and won majorities in numerous constituencies where it had still been far behind five years ago.
As a trans woman, I cannot view this result as an ordinary shift between political parties. For me, the AfD is not only about taxes, energy prices, or administrative reforms. It is about a political force whose election platform in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern calls, among other things, for bans on rainbow flags, gender-inclusive language, and puberty blockers, as well as the repeal of the Self-Determination Act. [20]
That is why a result like this does not create abstract concern for me. It frightens me.
And yet there is one crucial difference from Saxony-Anhalt: in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, there is a politically realistic democratic majority.
The SPD, Left Party, and Greens together hold 39 seats. That is three more than required for an absolute majority. The previous red-red government alone now has only 34 mandates, but it could be expanded to include the Greens. The SPD has announced that it will hold talks with both parties. The Greens have indicated that they are willing to do so. The Left Party has also signaled a willingness to talk, while making clear that there can be no simple continuation as before. [3]
Manuela Schwesig therefore has very good chances of remaining minister-president even though the SPD lost the election. That is not disregarding the election result. In a parliamentary democracy, the strongest party does not automatically govern. The party or coalition that can organize a majority in parliament governs.
The AfD won the election. But it has neither a majority nor a partner. Even its candidate Leif-Erik Holm now expects a government made up of the SPD, Left Party, and Greens. [3]
That gives me some relief. It does not reassure me.
With 32 of 71 seats, the AfD holds well over one third of the mandates. Decisions requiring a two-thirds majority would need 48 votes. The other three parliamentary groups together have only 39. The AfD therefore holds a blocking minority. It cannot govern alone, but it can block decisions for which the state constitution requires a two-thirds majority.
There is also an unusual parliamentary situation. If the SPD, Left Party, and Greens do in fact form a joint government, the AfD would be the only opposition parliamentary group. It could portray every confrontation as a battle against a unified political bloc. That does not make the coalition undemocratic. But it does mean that it would have to govern with particular transparency, resilience, and self-criticism.
A government that sees itself only as a bulwark against the AfD will not be enough. It must prove that democratic politics can actually improve people’s everyday lives. Otherwise, the AfD could be even stronger in five years.
Berlin Shows That Dissatisfaction Can Be Answered Differently
While the result from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern frightens me, I see Berlin as a glimmer of hope.
The Left Party won the election with 25.7 percent. In 2023, it had received only 12.2 percent. It has more than doubled its result and achieved its best-ever result in a Berlin House of Representatives election. The CDU fell from 28.2 to 18.8 percent. The AfD rose from 9.1 to 16.3 percent. The Greens received 14.3 percent and the SPD 12.1 percent. The BSW and FDP failed to enter parliament with 4.7 and 2.5 percent respectively. Voter turnout rose by 11.3 percentage points to 74.2 percent. [4, 5]
In the new House of Representatives, the Left Party receives 47 seats, the CDU 34, the AfD 29, the Greens 26, and the SPD 22. A majority requires 80 of the total 158 seats. [6]
The Left Party, Greens, and SPD together hold 95 mandates. This is not a majority that depends on a single vote or an accidental overhang seat. It is a comfortable political majority of 15 seats.
Elif Eralp could therefore become the first politician from the Left Party to serve as Governing Mayor of Berlin. She wants to speak with the Greens and SPD about forming a joint government. The Berlin Greens are also explicitly seeking this alliance. [5, 7]
Of course, these talks will not be easy. In particular, the Left Party’s demand to socialize large housing corporations could become a point of conflict with the SPD. The Greens are also demanding that the Left Party take an unequivocal position against antisemitism. [5]
But political differences are not an argument against coalition negotiations. They are the reason coalition negotiations are necessary.
For me, the glimmer of hope is not that all of Berlin’s problems have suddenly disappeared. The AfD made significant gains. 16.3 percent is not a reassuring result. Anyone who turns this election night into a simple story of cosmopolitan Berlin clearly rejecting the far right is making things too easy.
What matters is something else: the AfD was not able to claim protest for itself alone.
According to Infratest dimap’s voter migration analysis, the Left Party gained a net total of around 75,000 votes from previous nonvoters. It also gained around 57,000 votes from the Greens, 39,000 from the SPD, and 16,000 from the CDU. These figures are estimates based on official statistics and representative surveys, not individual tracking of votes. But they do show how broadly the party was able to mobilize. [8]
It was particularly strong among young people. According to the post-election survey, 43 percent of voters under the age of 25 chose the Left Party. Compared with 2023, that is an increase of 25 percentage points. [9]
That gives me hope because it contradicts a narrative that is becoming increasingly powerful in Germany. Young people are not inevitably lost to democracy. Not every disappointment leads to the right. Not every expression of anger seeks out weaker people to kick down at.
In Berlin, dissatisfaction was connected to a social response. Affordable housing, protection from displacement, and the question of whether people can still afford to live in their own city were at the center of Elif Eralp’s campaign. You do not have to agree with every demand made by the Left Party to acknowledge that concrete everyday concerns were addressed politically here. [9]
Perhaps that is Berlin’s real message: the AfD does not become smaller because democratic parties adopt its language. It becomes smaller when other parties credibly demonstrate that change can also be solidaristic, democratic, and humane.
Three Elections, Three CDU Collapses
Between Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin, there was one more election. On September 6, the AfD won Saxony-Anhalt with 43.8 percent. The CDU collapsed from 37.1 to 17.2 percent. It lost 25 of its 40 seats and failed to win a single direct mandate. In 2021, it had still won 40 of 41 constituencies directly. In 2026, 38 direct mandates went to the AfD and three to the Left Party. [10, 11]
The CDU’s record over the course of two weeks is devastating:
State | Previous result | 2026 result | Change | Seats before | Seats 2026 |
Saxony-Anhalt | 37.1% | 17.2% | -19.9 points | 40 | 15 |
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | 13.3% | 4.9% | -8.4 points | 12 | 0 |
Berlin | 28.2% | 18.8% | -9.5 points | 52 | 34 |
In all three states, the CDU remains below 20 percent. In Saxony-Anhalt, its vote share was more than cut in half. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, it disappears from a state parliament for the first time. In Berlin, it is likely to lose the Red City Hall.
The AfD is now the strongest party in state elections in three eastern German states: after Thuringia in 2024, now also Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. What was still discussed in 2024 as an outlier in a single state reads like a pattern two years later.
It would be too simplistic to hold Friedrich Merz solely responsible for every individual defeat. In Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff’s significant incumbency advantage disappeared after his withdrawal. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the CDU was squeezed out in the highly personalized contest between Manuela Schwesig and the AfD. In Berlin, the crisis surrounding Kai Wegner and the late switch to Stefan Evers weighed on the campaign. [3 ,5]
But three collapses of this magnitude in such different states can no longer be treated as unrelated accidents.
Federal politics has given the CDU no momentum. Merz himself acknowledged that on election night. [12] In the ARD Deutschlandtrend from early September, the Union stood at 21 percent nationwide and the AfD at 27 percent. Only 13 percent of respondents were satisfied with the chancellor’s work. Eighty-four percent were dissatisfied with the work of the federal government. [13]
That is the federal political backdrop against which these three election defeats stand.
Holding On Without Support
Friedrich Merz appeared before the cameras unusually early on election night. At that point, it was still unclear whether the CDU would clear the five-percent threshold in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. He called the result there a “disaster,” but ruled out personal consequences and reaffirmed his reform agenda. What now had to be done would require “backbone, steadfastness and patience,” he said. He would demonstrate those qualities as party chairman and federal chancellor. [12, 14]
This is exactly where I see the problem.
Merz describes responsibility as the willingness to continue despite resistance. His critics, by contrast, understand responsibility as the willingness to draw consequences from visible failure.
What he calls steadfastness increasingly looks like a refusal to acknowledge the effects of his own politics.
Of course, an outraged comment section proves nothing about the views of an entire country. Anonymous statements from members of a Bundestag parliamentary group are not an organized revolt either. As an indication of the mood, however, the reactions are still interesting, precisely because the same themes recur in so many places.
Under the recording of his speech posted on Instagram, numerous calls for resignation and accusations of being detached from reality accumulated. The news outlet news.de analyzed these reactions. They are not representative, but they show how far Merz’s self-image as a determined reformer and his public perception have diverged. [15]
FOCUS online, citing conversations with CDU members of parliament, insiders, and local politicians, reports confusion, anger, and a state of “shock” in parts of the party. One Berlin CDU politician quoted by name offered what may be the bitterest criticism for Merz: he had set out to halve the AfD. In reality, he had halved the CDU. Other people interviewed could explain why things could not continue this way, but not what a personnel alternative might look like. [16]
That describes the current situation precisely: Friedrich Merz still holds his office. Whether he still has the support that office requires is another question.
A chancellor does not have to be overthrown in order to lose power. The loss of power begins earlier. It begins when calls to persevere are no longer understood as leadership. When party colleagues speak only anonymously. When public support has to be demonstratively organized. When, after historic defeats, no one can convincingly explain why an unchanged course should improve the situation.
In the short term, I nevertheless do not expect a resignation. State elections do not remove a federal chancellor from office. Within the Union, there is so far no visible majority in favor of replacing him and no person openly challenging Merz. International observers also see growing pressure, but not yet an organized challenge to his leadership. [17]
In the medium term, the consequences could be considerable.
Merz will encounter greater resistance within his own parliamentary group to his reform plans. After its own losses, the SPD is likely to be even less willing to support unpopular social cuts. The dispute within the Union over how to deal with the AfD in the future will intensify. One faction will demand a further shift to the right. Another will point out that precisely this attempt has so far failed to weaken the AfD.
The voter migration figures support this second warning. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the CDU lost a net total of around 32,000 votes to the AfD. In Berlin, it was around 60,000. Adopting the positions and language of the AfD does not automatically win back its voters. Often, it merely confirms for them that the original was right in its description of the problem. [18, 19]
This will not make governing any easier for the CDU-SPD federal government. The SPD can point to Manuela Schwesig, who distanced herself from the federal government during the campaign and performed substantially better than her party did in Berlin. [21] That gives the SPD an incentive to distance itself more clearly from Merz. At the same time, the CDU faces pressure to make its own demands more visibly felt within the coalition.
An already difficult coalition could turn into a government in which both partners believe they can survive only by distancing themselves from one another.
The Wrong Answer to the AfD
Friedrich Merz wanted to halve the AfD. Instead, it has grown stronger nationwide and won two state elections within two weeks.
That does not mean that every political decision of the past few years was wrong or that another CDU chairman could simply have prevented this development. The causes of the AfD’s rise run deeper. Economic insecurity, a lack of trust in institutions, unresolved infrastructure problems, the consequences of social upheaval, and professional far-right mobilization cannot be attributed to one person alone.
But Merz must be judged against his own stated goal.
The strategy of taking votes away from the AfD through harsher rhetoric, a culture war against progressive politics, and the adoption of individual right-wing narratives has visibly failed. It has not demystified the AfD. It has normalized many of its issues.
When even democratic parties describe migration almost exclusively as a threat, when gender diversity is portrayed as an alleged imposition, and when social insecurity is answered primarily with toughness toward others, the entire political space shifts. The AfD does not even have to win every debate. It is enough for its view of the world to become the starting point of the debate.
Berlin shows another possibility.
The party that won there was not the one speaking most loudly against minorities. It was a party that placed rents, displacement, and social security at the center of its campaign. The Left Party mobilized young people and previous nonvoters. It offered dissatisfied people a promise of change that was not based on exclusion.
That is not proof that left-wing politics automatically defeats the AfD everywhere. Berlin is not Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and it is not Saxony-Anhalt. Their social structures, political traditions, and concrete problems differ considerably.
But Berlin disproves the claim that every form of radical dissatisfaction must inevitably move to the right.
My Fear Remains. But It No Longer Stands Alone.
The result from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern frightens me. Almost four out of ten votes for the AfD cannot be minimized. The fact that the party will probably not govern does not change how deeply rooted it has become in society.
As a trans woman, I know that political shifts eventually arrive in everyday life. They change the language in which people talk about us. They change whether people object when we are insulted. They change funding programs, education, policing, and the protection of social spaces. And eventually, they may change laws.
That is why I cannot simply return to business as usual.
But Berlin gives me back a small part of the hope that Saxony-Anhalt took from me.
Not because the AfD is weak there. Not because a left-wing government would automatically solve every problem. But because Berlin has shown that political mobilization can work differently. Solidarity can reach people. Social security can be a powerful issue. Young people can choose democratic change. Nonvoters can be won back. In both Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin, however, the actual coalition negotiations still lie ahead. Both alliances still have to prove that they are viable.
The two elections therefore do not tell the story of two different Germanys. They show two possible responses to the same sense of insecurity.
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the AfD concentrated anger, disappointment, and protest. In Berlin, the Left Party succeeded in connecting dissatisfaction with a social and democratic alternative.
The AfD is not unbeatable. But it will not be defeated by copying it.
It will only be pushed back when democratic politics once again credibly demonstrates that the future can be more than fear, harshness, and the search for scapegoats.
That is the glimmer of hope from Berlin.
It is small. It is fragile. But after these past few weeks, it is far too precious to overlook.
Yours, Lizbeth
Sources
Wahlrecht.de unter Verwendung der Daten der Landeswahlleitung: Landtagswahl 2026 in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, vorläufiges Ergebnis und Sitzverteilung
Landeswahlleitung Berlin: Vorläufiges Ergebnis der Wahl zum 20. Abgeordnetenhaus
WELT/dpa: Evers erklärt die Berliner CDU für gesprächsbereit, Sitzverteilung und mögliche Mehrheiten
Tagesschau/Infratest dimap: Wählerwanderung der Linken in Berlin
Landeswahlleitung Sachsen-Anhalt: Vorläufiges Landesergebnis der Landtagswahl 2026
Reuters: Erosion der politischen Mitte und wachsender Druck auf Friedrich Merz
news.de: Reaktionen auf den Auftritt von Friedrich Merz am Wahlabend
Associated Press: Druck auf Merz, aber noch keine offene Herausforderung seiner Führung
Tagesschau/Infratest dimap: Wählerwanderung der CDU in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Tagesschau/Infratest dimap: Wählerwanderung der CDU in Berlin
queer.de: So queerfeindlich ist das Regierungsprogramm der AfD Mecklenburg-Vorpommern sowie NDR: AfD-Wahlprogramm mit völkisch-nationalistischem Grundton
Reuters: Merz unter Druck vor der Wahl in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Comments