Two German states vote with the Alternative for Germany polling near first place in the north-east

Voters in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern elect state parliaments on Sunday, in a test of how far the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has advanced. The New York Times frames the day as one that could either consolidate the party's rise or provoke a backlash.

The polling is close in the north-east. The ZDF-Politbarometer put the AfD at 37 percent against 34 percent for the Social Democrats in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, while Infratest dimap measured the party at 35 percent. In 2021 the AfD took 16.7 percent there and the Social Democrats 39.6 percent. In Berlin, polls show the Left narrowly ahead of the Christian Democrats. Thousands joined protests against the AfD in Schwerin during the final week of campaigning, according to ZDF.

Energy is central to the argument. AfD member of the Bundestag Steffen Kotré told TASS that sanctions policy has limited Germany's energy supply options, saying that the government had cut the country off from cheap crude via the Druzhba pipeline rather than buying it on favourable terms. The German government and most parliamentary parties reject that position, arguing that dependence on Russian energy was itself the vulnerability that had to be removed. Both accounts describe the same measurable fact, which is that German industrial electricity and gas costs remain well above the levels that prevailed before 2022 and above those of competitors in the United States and China.

A strong AfD result does not change federal policy directly, because state parliaments do not set foreign or energy policy for the country. It changes the calculation of parties that do. Each regional result that shows the AfD near or at first place raises the political cost of higher energy prices, of support for Ukraine and of the fiscal expansion the federal government has planned.