Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg since 1990

regardless of what happens at Sunday's elections it is true that East German politics has fundamentally changed from where it began in 1990 and in this video I want to take a quick historical analysis of the way that the East German political environment and political landscape has changed over the past 35 years I want to take a look at the three states in particular that are holding elections this September and see how they voted since 1990 how it's changed and how the different parties have done in various elections I want to also take a look at the first elections in East Germany before it officially became part of the federal republic in 199 for the folks camer and this was a very interesting election and this was basically an election that was held after the collapse of the communist government in East Germany they lost power after opening the wall and there was a kind of Swift change in in power and they decided to hold their first open completely uh Democratic elections and the Christian Democratic Union and its political Allies won a sweeping Landslide Victory combined winning around 48% of the vote nearly winning an absolute majority the social Democrats won second place with 22% of the votee followed by the party of democratic socialism the predecessor to Dinka which was the successor to the East German socialist Unity party which was the Communist party that governed East Germany from 1949 to 1989 that party came or it successor rather the PDS came in third place with 16.4% followed by various liberal and green associations and parties that did around 1 to 5% now this election was very decisive it gave the CDU a major victory it was not only a victory for the CD in East Germany in the new states it was also a victory for the CDU in the west hel M Cole as the chancellor had made this a part of his campaign to unify Germany the CDU had made that a part of their political identity and it still remains today a part of the legacy of the CDU that they were the party that managed to achieve unification they were the party in government in both West Germany and in East Germany what's important to note is this election determined the East German legislature as its own country so even after East Germany had decided its new Parliament that was had replaced the communist government after they loss power it was still its own country and what happened was over the next several months the CDU along with other parties like the SPD reformed East Germany to make it compatible for reunification so they basically abolished the state institutions to allow it to be you know kind of combined into and integrated into the German federal republic of course the party of democratic socialism be the being the successor to the s a more moderate one for a democratic environment a lot of the Old Guard had left the party had been expelled from it and been taken over by a new you know youth wing of the lead uh youth uh wing of the leadership mainly led by Gregor gizy Hans M and others they of course were still very loyal to the old system and they were opposed to it but of course with only 16% and a few allies amongst other parties they did not muster enough support to prevent reunification from happening and happening in the way it did so we see the CDU from the beginning was very dominant here and if we take a look at the map we can see that from the beginning in 1990 we see a political kind of map being drawn for East Germany that is pretty much in place today to some extent and that is that all of the states went heavily for the CDU with the exception of Brandenburg so the five East German states are meinberg for pom meinberg Western Pomerania in the north then you have sex anal here Brandenburg Thia and Saxon and of course there's a sixth State technically which is East Berlin East Berlin combined with West Berlin to make the state of the current state of Berlin so there are five East German states new bundeslander as they're also called and then East Berlin which is integrated into West Berlin so technically 5 and a half East German states that became part of the German federal republic all with their own elections and different you political environments but as we can see here that in Saxony Thia Saxony anal and mberg Western Pomerania the CDU was clearly the largest party winning not only over 50% in many areas but winning almost all of the districts including the cities that went slightly more for the SPD uh and to some extent however there was one exception that was Brandenburg and this is even true today brandenberg was became a stronghold for the SPD in 1990 and the brand you know the SPD has remained strong in the state even though they've become weakened they have been able to win elections back toback on the state level and then of course you see the purple is the PDS that is the you know predecessor to Dinka the successor to the S they won in the middle parts of East Berlin which up until recently up until the collapse of D Linka and the rise of the bsv was the stronghold of the party in some of the suburbs known as lenberg or matsan in the middle of East Berlin where they are very strong there is very high support for the East German government even the approval of the you know the the State of East Germany was very high in these regions with a lot of the older voters people in their 60s people that had grown up with East Germany even though they weren't necessarily all Communists or all PDS voters a lot of them had a higher approval rating or higher support of the East German state and its you know its Effectiveness than West Germany because some of the problems after German unification they did change with the youth but we see as we were going to see there are still political divides between the East and West the PDS also did some you know well in meinberg Western Pomerania in the part on the East which is of course Pomerania and this basically set the lines for what would happen in the East German states so now I want to take a look at the way each of the states voted in its state elections of course the elections for the entirety of East Germany were held in in 1990 and by the end of the year the reunification had effectively happened the East German legislature had integrated had allowed East Germany to be integrated into the federal republic the federal republic the bundestag in in bond had approved it and then became one country and then there was new elections held for the bundestag including uh East the East German states and then of course there were also the individual State elections for the five states that had now become part of the country and of course three of these states Saxony Thia and Brandenburg are holding their state elections on this this month two of them being September 1st those are Saxon and Thia and then Brandenburg on the 22nd so I want to take a look at the way these states have voted historically so we can see you know what the background is the way these states have been in the past to see how you know drastic the results we are cuz the results we're going to get on Sunday are definitely going to be interesting but it's very it's going to be even more interesting when we look at how these states have voted in the past now if we start out with Saxony Saxony was from the beginning a very very big strong hold for the CDU even almost more strong as strong as Bavaria was for the CSU or CDU CSU on the federal level Saxony from the beginning had a CDU absolute majority this mean the CDU alone had enough seats in the legislature the lant to govern the state alone and this was true from 1990 up until 2004 and even in 2004 when they suffered heavy losses they were still the largest Party by a long range you know by around over you know 20 points and even today as they have dropped and lost some support and you see the rise of the afd they are still the largest party and even now polling as potentially being the largest party in the state but what is very interesting in a lot of these states a similar thing happened was that as the problems with East German unification became you know more and more apparent there was a Resurgence for Dinka or the PDS there was a kind of higher approval not necessarily people going back to Dinka that were necessarily hardcore Communists or socialist but there were a lot of problems that were not addressed by unification a lot of people started to see that the life under you know the life in East Germany was better than West Germany not everyone but there was a substantial you know amount of the population that felt that way and that kind of drove Dinka to surging in the 90s when unemployment in East Germany you know Rose and and there was a time where the unemployment in some East German states was around 20 25% but in West German it wasn't as bad so there were there were deep economic problems in the East that drove people to voting for a party like d lol they wanted to return to the Past even if it had some issues even if they didn't have as much Freedom as there was kind of an economic stability and that drove some of the voters so we see Dinka was you know able to Surge and in 1994 they overtook the SPD as the main leftwing party so although they never overtook the CDU they were never to you know able to put forward a governor they did manage to overtake the SPD to themselves as the main opposition party the main leftwing party in the state and this is true in pretty much all the states with the exception of Brandenburg in the 1990s we also see the greens and the fdp here getting around 5% you know every election it is it was very difficult for the greens and fdp to win above 5% at every election they were kind of seen as West German parties parties that were very popular amongst the middle class in Western Germany but they very they struggled a lot in the East you know with the greens of course did okay in some of the Cities but even there it was very difficult for them to win enough support to compete with the other parties and of course later on you see in 2014 the afd came onto the scene they were founded in 2013 so at this election they only got around 10% but of course the migration crisis and other things led to a rise of the party for them going up to 27% asserting themselves second place so in one election we see a very different change but overall you can see that the CDU has dominated this state and this is why I want to take a look at this chart is because on Sunday it is kind of up in the air who's going to win we could see the CDU continue this this trend and haul the state for another four years making it effectively 40 Years of cgu or 40 35 years of uh CDU governance and or in ter you know on the other hand we could see the afd win and this would be the first time since ever I mean for this for this iteration of Saxony that a party other than the CDU has won of course there were elections in Saxony in the Yar Republic and before then but that was a very different time completely different political environment uh and there was a lot of Trends there that were completely opposite of what we see now so Saxony very interesting whether or not the CDU or CDU will hold on for another five years or the afd will win and flip this state to another color for the first time in its history um now the next state we're going to look at is thoring now theingi was somewhat similar to Saxony the CDU was very strong here and early on they were basically at an absolute majority whether or not I mean they could either went over 50% and governed on their own or they were very close to that and would govern with the fdp or SPD you know having enough support to basically ensure that they would you know hold the governorship and we see another interesting situation here I mean very similar to Saxony with the dynamic of the left and the SPD from 1990 dink was or the PDS was only around 10% but as the issues with East Germany started to you know come to the Forefront we saw them rise to around 16% then 21% then around 26% so in three consecutive elections they they Rose and then kind of you know leveled off around the mid 2000s but they were able to overtake the SPD in 1999 asserting themselves once again as the main leftwing party in the state the main opposition party and what's interesting about Thia is they had a very effective Branch under Bodo ramoo which became leader in I believe the early 2000s he was their league candidate and eventually became governor and what is very interesting about Thia is Dinka never collapsed here like they did in the other states and because they had a very effective Branch they were able to put themselves forward enough to you know actually create and form and lead a government and so they actually grew and I'm not sure but I believe this might be a record but they were able to grow and increase their support in six consecutive elections so the Dinka or the PDS in th ringia has never lost support in an election from 1990 up until 2019 and every election they got more higher percentage of the vote than in the previous election of course that is not going to be the case this time they are polling at only around you know 14 15% half of what they got last time so they are going to see a big dip but nonetheless they are fairing a lot better than dink is in other states and we can see that of course contrary to Saxony the CDU here completely collapsed in 2019 they went from being the largest party in every single state election until then to in one going from first place down to third getting beat by Dinka by a large margin and of course by the afd by around a point and a half now what's interesting is that in this kind of scenario for 2024 it's kind of up in the air who is going to come in second the afd is likely going to win the election and then the CDU will most likely come second but the bsv could end up beating them so the CDU obviously is still very an important player here especially when it comes to forming a government but they are not as strong here as they used to be I mean you look at in 1999 they were reaching over around 51% you know governing on their own and now they're pulling it just over 22% so definitely a big change dink itself which has been very successful in the state very you know a very big uh political player this was their state you know the 2019 elections in Thia or was the dink's strongest best election result in any state in in Germany uh in its history and so obviously they're they are collapsing a big change you know the Dinka is very strong in the state but they have not been able to survive the major challenges that have faced the entire party as a whole and we can also see the SPD is basically become IR relevant in the state they are still important to forming a government you know to being a junior partner but as for being a major Coalition partner they are not really important and they were kind of you know influential in the '90s but they have kind of collapsed and even now in 2020 before they're expected to go even further below and then similar to the other states the greens and the fdp are you know sometimes in play for maybe winning over 5% and being part of the government or opposition but they're not major players in these elections in this state either and the last state we're going to look at of course is Brandenburg now Brandenburg is different from the other two and that as we saw from the 1990 folks camer election Brandenburg became a stronghold for the SPD now the reasons for this are somewhat interesting the it's it's it's very contrary to what it was historically because if you look at the maps if you look at the elections in the W Republic in before World War II Brandenburg was somewhat more conservative and Saxony was actually somewhat more of a stronghold for the SPD and it's kind of hard to determine what exactly happened but it is important to note that this was you know a huge gap I mean there there were no elections held in Brandenburg and Saxony between 1933 and 1990 so there was you know a lot of decades where a lot of you know there were a lot of changes um in the population in the political environment I mean they went through three different iteration you know three different regimes and countries and so a lot changed and so the historical Trends were not didn't really survive um and you can't really see them being reflected here but we see Brandenburg stronghold of the SBD in 1994 they won around 58% you can see how leftwing the state is compared to Saxony not only did the SBD win an absolute majority by a huge margin Dinka or the PDS rather came on par with the CDU meaning you had the SPD at around 58% % and then Dinka or sorry the PDS and the CDU at around both 18% so with a you know leftwing party around you know 60% and a party to the left of them around 20% almost winning second place and we see this was an interesting scenario where you have the same Dynamic with Dinka Rising as the main opposition party but instead of it being overtaking the SPD it was overtaking the CDU and that did happen almost in 1994 but in 2004 and 2009 they did do very well there was actually a chance in 2004 that their lead candidate dagma enlan would become the governor in some polls they were winning the election however they didn't know end up falling short and only won second place albeit with major gains and in 2009 that the same thing happened so Dinka was able to you know do very strong here and actually before Bodo ramalo was became Governor this was the strongest state for D Linka at least at the Statewide level for the elections them winning around 28% was a very good showing and the CDU kind of fell below that you know second place and then there was a time in late 90s early 2000s where this was a very leftwing State you have two leftwing parties competing for first and second place and that of course is very comparable to way the way Saxony is now between the CDU and the afd of course that is completely changed since the afd came online as a political force and the Dinko suffered heavy losses they dropped around eight points in 2014 and then another eight points in 2019 so theyve fallen from their high of around 28 29% in 2004 and of course in this election 20 years after that they expected to fall below the 5% threshold losing all representation now it is interesting because it is significant that Dinka which has been of course a major player in these states has been the second largest or largest party in all three is going to be completely wiped out but in term they're not necessarily going away the bsv although not the you know is not the exact same as Dinka it is of course founded by former members of the PDS D in Dinka it is led by Sarah Vaga next to who is from East Germany so in a way the bsv is replacing Dinka it's not exactly that's not exactly true but it is the case so it's not as simple as that Dinka is disappearing you know from the East German political landscape but rather a new iteration of Dinka led by a different wing of the party is replacing them Andy Linka is kind of falling out uh so that is interesting and we will see how the bsv does in the state but as you can see similar to the other two the afd rose to second place so we see in Saxon and Thia we see uh the CDU and the afd competing and of course in Brandenburg it is the SPD and the afd but there are trends that are true in all three states the incumbent parties the CDU and the SBD have fallen they are not as strong as they were in the past they were nowhere near winning an absolute majority and you know the minor parties the greens the FDB haven't been able to make gains it's you know new it's you have a lot of younger voters that have grown up voters that have not been born in East Germany but were born in the new federal republic they can now vote been able to for years and still then the greens and fdp weren't able to really break through in 2019 and 20 you know 21 and some of the elections they were able to do well in East Germany but you know that is since kind of faded and so this is really going to be interesting um that this these changes will continue and we can see that there was a complete you know uh new dynamic in East German politics where it went from a you know one dominant party to two oppos in two opposition parties to being almost four or five competing for first and second place all very close at around 15 to 20% so very interesting and we'll have to see the way the results play out but I want to do this video to kind of look at the history of these states to kind of give everyone a background can kind of give everyone an idea of how these states have voted in the past and how significant these results are if something happens like the CDU Falls to second place in Saxony or if Dinka loses all representation in Brandenburg just how important that is from a historical perspective so I want to do this video and that's going to be it before these elections of course when we get the results on Sunday I will do a video a quick video covering the Raw results and then probably a deeper dive into both the states and then of course Brandenburg will follow a few weeks after that so if you do like these videos please like share subscribe and I'll see you all in the next one thank you for watching