(Adnkronos) – The AfD soars in voting intentions just over a week before the regional elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in eastern Germany. Alternative for Germany, which emerged victorious from the regional elections on September 6 in Saxony-Anhalt with 43.8% of the votes, could gather 37% of preferences in Schwerin on September 20, according to a poll for the public broadcaster Zdf, against 34% for the SPD, which currently governs the region together with the left-wing Die Linke (10%). Merz’s party, however, collapses to 7%, close to the 5% threshold needed to enter the regional Parliament, a threshold around which the Greens (5%) are placed. In the previous elections for the renewal of the Landtag in 2021, the SPD had obtained 39.6% of the votes, the AfD 16.7%, the CDU 13.3%, Die Linke 9.9%, the Greens 6.3%, the FDP 5.8%. If the voting intentions were to be confirmed by the polls, the tripartite SPD-Die Linke-Greens coalition would be the most probable, given that the AfD has no potential allies.
On September 20, voters in the city-state of Berlin will also be called to the polls. Its regional parliament, officially called the Abgeordnetenhaus (House of Representatives), has both municipal and regional functions. In Berlin, the race for the mayor-governor position, contested by the CDU – currently allied, as at the federal level, with the SPD – is uncertain, and Merz – who fears a new strong showing by the far-right in Mecklenburg, which could gain more than double the votes collected five years ago – is being pressed here by the Linke. In the Zdf poll, Die Linke slightly surpasses the CDU (21%) with 23%. Followed by the AfD (17%), the Greens (16%), and the SPD (10%). An alliance between the three left-wing parties could therefore govern the capital, but a coalition between the CDU, SPD, and Greens could also hold the majority. In 2021, the SPD had gathered 21.4% of the votes, the Greens 18.9%, the CDU 18%, the Linke 14.1%, and the AfD 8%.
