AfD candidate wins in constituency
Seven votes cost Woidke the direct mandate
23.09.2024, 04:26
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Dietmar Woidke leads the SPD in Brandenburg to its most important electoral victory in a long time. However, the popular Prime Minister cannot prevail in his own constituency. The result is, however, extremely close.
In the state elections in Brandenburg, the SPD owes its greatest electoral success in a long time mainly to the popularity of its top candidate and incumbent Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke. However, the election winner was unable to defend his own direct mandate, losing to the AfD candidate by the narrowest of margins. Woidke received 41.5 percent of the first votes in his Spree-Neiße I constituency, just like AfD candidate Steffen Kubitzki, according to the state election commission. Kubitzki received 11,562 first votes, seven more than Woidke.
Woidke had won the Spree-Neiße I constituency in the last three state elections. Woidke first entered the state parliament in Potsdam in 1994 as a direct candidate in the constituency, and has been a member of the state parliament ever since. The SPD politician from Forst has been state premier since August 2013. In the 2019 election, Woidke received 36.2 percent of the first votes, while AfD man Kubitzki received 32.4 percent.
In the state election, the SPD received 30.89 percent of the second votes, making it the strongest force in Brandenburg once again. The AfD received 29.23 percent, the BSW 13.48 percent. The CDU, in fourth place, received 12.10 percent. The Greens, the Left Party and the Free Voters failed to enter the state parliament in Potsdam. Voter turnout was 72.9 percent.
Woidke could thus continue to govern after eleven years in office – either an alliance with the BSW or a three-party coalition with the BSW and the CDU would be possible.
CDU top candidate Jan Redmann also missed out on his direct mandate in the state election, although by a much larger margin than Woidke. Redmann was running for the first time in the Ostprignitz-Ruppin I constituency. The direct mandate was defended by State Parliament President Ulrike Liedtke of the SPD with 34.6 percent of the vote. Second place in the first votes in the constituency was taken by AfD candidate Henry Preuß with 32.2. Redmann, whose CDU also performed historically poorly nationwide in the second votes, received 16.6 percent of the first votes.