Trustworthy mother of the country or ruin

The fish stinks from the head. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) was in Kühlungsborn to help with the election campaign and ate a fish sandwich

Friedrich Merz (CDU) bites into a fish sandwich. He says: “Very good.” And: “Fresh and really good.” And that he had just had “a really great appointment” with entrepreneurs in nearby Rostock. Otherwise, the Chancellor, surrounded by at least 20 cameramen, doesn't say much on this rainy afternoon at the end of August in the small fish restaurant on the beach promenade in the Baltic Sea resort of Kühlungsborn. You shouldn't talk while eating. Good morals and stuff.

Then a tiny piece of the promenade is walked. The program now includes: shaking men's, women's and children's hands, smiling as relaxed as possible, and sometimes waving. Contact with people – this quickly becomes visibly unpleasant for the Chancellor.

In view of the AfD candidates, there is something more to Manuela Schwesig's "I or the AfD" than the simple addiction to maintaining power that the CDU assumes.

Arrived at the end point of the parade, 100 meters from the fish restaurant, at a CDU election campaign stand, Merz still has to let AfD supporters insult him while he tries to exchange empty phrases with a few more friendly passers-by across a police barrier. Shortly afterwards he speeds off again in his black limousine.

The appearance, which lasted just an hour, was the first - and foreseeable only - public event of support that Merz gave to his election campaigning party colleagues from the CDU Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. On September 20th, a new state parliament will be elected in the structurally weak and poorly populated federal state. And if you believe the polls, the Christian Democrats are expecting a debacle.

As is the case everywhere in East Germany, the right-wing extremist AfD has been leading the polls in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for weeks with a constant vote of around 35 percent. Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig's SPD was below thirty percent for a long time, and just last week a survey suddenly saw it at 32 percent. The Left Party, which has been in government for five years, follows far behind with eleven percent, followed by the opposition CDU. Some institutes only give her eight percent. It is quite possible that the party will achieve its worst result at the state level in the election in the northeast since the founding of the Federal Republic.

It's the others' fault. At least that's how the CDU state chairman and top candidate Daniel Peters sees it. According to Peters, his party is becoming the victim of a heated election campaign between the AfD and the SPD, largely driven by Prime Minister Schwesig, who is only concerned with maintaining power. “Manuela Schwesig doesn’t want to save democracy, Manuela Schwesig wants to save Manuela Schwesig,” says Peters angrily.

Schwesig is reluctant to make similar attacks on the CDU. According to the motto: The energy is not worth it. On the evening of the state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate in March, for example, she said in a television interview with a malicious smile: "Unfortunately, it is not possible to fight for office with the CDU here; the CDU in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is unfortunately far too weak for that." Then she spoke about herself in the third person: "This is clearly about Manuela Schwesig and the SPD - or the AfD on September 20th."

The Rostock AfD direct candidate robbed a Volksbank branch in Duisburg in 2012 and was therefore sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He probably forgot to mention that when he was nominated.

In fact, Schwesig has been repeating this one central message over and over again since last year: Me or the AfD, loyal mother of the country or ruin, I am the democracy, best regards, your Manu, that's roughly what her campaign message is. Schwesig – in office since 2017 – is quite successful in her state. A comparative look at the SPD's devastating survey results in other federal states as well as at the federal level is sufficient.

But a look at the values of the AfD is enough. Because all-time high or not: Since the federal election at the beginning of 2025, it has barely budged at around 35 percent. A “sole government” for the AfD, which its avuncular top candidate Leif-Erik Holm fantasizes about, is not in sight. And the CDU, which is constantly under suspicion of demolishing firewalls, has so far made no move to make itself available to the AfD in any way.

“It turns out that the AfD is not a conservative, bourgeois party, but rather tolerates problematic members,” wrote CDU top candidate Daniel Peters on As has just become known, Brille had robbed a Volksbank branch in Duisburg in 2012 and was therefore sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He probably forgot to mention that when he was nominated.

Talking about the “problematic” members seems to be a gross understatement. There is Tommy Thormann, an AfD direct candidate on the holiday island of Rügen. According to the SPD parliamentary group in the state parliament, the former official of the party's youth organization has already "posed in public with a Wehrmacht helmet and racist T-shirts" and distributed stickers with the right-wing extremist white power symbol to young people. In May, at an event in Sassnitz, he threatened that once the AfD took power, it would set the police on political opponents. »Rügen remains a patriotic people's area. Rügen remains German," he also shouted. It is certain that he will win the direct mandate and sit in the next state parliament.

The regional Ostsee-Zeitung called the regional association of the Left Party “Schwesig’s bobblehead”.

Or take Nikolaus Kramer, former AfD parliamentary group leader in the state parliament and direct candidate in the Vorpommern-Greifswald V constituency. Kramer describes himself as a “remigration officer”. He employed Daniel Fiß, once a leading cadre of the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement and a former member of the Young Nationalists, the youth organization of the NPD (since 2023 “Die Heimat”), as a personal speaker, which was obviously not a problem for Kramer. He is also likely to get the direct mandate.

In view of these personal details, there is something more to Manuela Schwesig's "I or the AfD" than the simple addiction to maintaining power that the CDU assumes. It is well known and at the same time not surprising that Schwesig would like to continue the coalition with the Left Party for the next five years. After all, the cooperation also worked smoothly and noiselessly in the last legislative period.

Critics say that Schwesig sets the tone and that the Left Party follows suit. Where did the Left Party make sure to enforce its own positions? The regional Ostsee-Zeitung called the regional association “Schwesig’s bobblehead”. Not true, says the Left Party. Top candidate Simone Oldenburg is not the only one who points out that many social successes, especially in the education sector, would not have happened or would no longer have happened without the party: the non-contributory daycare centers and holiday after-school care centers, the better childcare ratios in the daycare centers, the collective agreement loyalty law.

But it is also true that more radical issues such as the demand for the expropriation of housing companies, which was omnipresent in the Left Party's Berlin election campaign, are not even remotely considered by the comrades in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. On the other hand, the party in the northeast can be credited for completely lacking the anti-Zionist riotism found in parts of the western left. At party conferences, the Communist Platform is still railing against aid to Ukraine, as it once did, which is usually quickly moderated by the leaders of the regional association.

So the SPD and the Left Party could actually continue to govern happily. However, it will probably not be enough for a parliamentary majority after September 20th. Things could look different if the Greens make it back into the state parliament. The party is currently hovering around five percent in polls. She has already clearly announced that she would support the red-red-green coalition if she were to return to parliament. The fact that Prime Minister Schwesig and Green Party lead candidate Claudia Müller apparently don't get along particularly well is a gift.