Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania | State elections in MV: The election to die out

In MV the proportion of pensioners is constantly growing; there are already too few people of working age. The AfD would exacerbate the trend with its plans. Photo: IMAGO/Chris Emil Janßen If a new state government is elected in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Sunday, the AfD is likely to become the strongest force. In rural communities of all places, approval ratings of up to 70 percent are expected for the party, whose goal is the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people with a migration background. The residents here should actually greet everyone who moves to the regions threatened with extinction with a kiss.

The poll numbers of the extreme right-wing party are causing great concern for people like Lili. To protect the mother of three, we have changed her name. Her voice sounds depressed when she talks about Saxony-Anhalt: 44 percent for the AfD in the state elections on September 6th. At least twelve percentage points less than the party achieved in the last federal election in Friedland. Lili grew up in the small town in MV.

The 39-year-old came to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 1996 – as a refugee child in the middle of the so-called baseball bat years. »I had to live in an asylum home until I was 16. I never felt welcome. Because the school bus didn't go to the shared accommodation, she had to walk four kilometers every day. »I was almost always chased by the same Nazi on a bicycle. Sometimes he just spit on me, sometimes he kicked me.”

Violence was also the order of the day at school and in shared accommodation, says Lili: beatings from classmates, Nazis in front of the door, but also in the accommodation. “We didn’t go to the toilet at night, we just pooped in a bucket,” Lili remembers. Her parents had to fight for a long time to ensure that separate toilets and showers were set up for women in the home. Even after that, the path remained difficult for Lili: from training as a textile saleswoman to jobs as a cleaner and kitchen helper to the coordinator of the Neubrandenburg Psychosocial Center. “We always had to fight,” she says. A fight to simply be able to live a normal life in peace.

The rural communities in MV are also fighting – against extinction. Friedland's population has shrunk by almost 40 percent since 1990, and more than 30 percent of the residents are now pensioners. MV has lost a good 17 percent of its population since unification - significantly more in rural communities like Friedland than near the city.

The lack of young people is already pushing many municipalities to the wall: Falling population numbers and aging mean falling tax revenues for already cash-strapped municipalities. More and more training positions remain unfilled, the shortage of teachers is getting worse - and while more and more old people need medical care, there are fewer and fewer doctors and nurses.

All estimates assume a further significant population decline in the Northeast. “We can do relatively little when it comes to natural population development,” says Peter Dehne to “nd”. The regional planner has been researching the development of rural areas at the Neubrandenburg University of Applied Sciences since the 1990s. “East Germany in particular carries the burden of the 1990s and early 2000s,” says the professor emeritus.

Many young people emigrated at that time and the birth rate plummeted. “This still shapes demographic developments today,” explains Dehne. Because the children who were not born in the 90s cannot have children today. “We will continue to feel this until 2070.” In the long term, this natural population development could be influenced, for example through better living and working conditions for families and especially women with children. But in the short term the effect is small. “The most important adjustment screw is ultimately immigration to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.”

»Many young people emigrated in the 1990s and the birth rate plummeted. This still shapes demographic developments today.«

This is also shown by the Federal Statistical Office's most recent population forecast for 2025. It draws different scenarios depending on the migration balance - immigration minus emigration: If 350,000 more people move to Germany every year than emigrate, MV's population will "only" shrink by 17 percent by 2070. As much as since unification. But given the current political situation, that hardly seems realistic. Last year it would have required more immigration than in 2015.

If the net migration falls to 150,000 people per year, the West German average before 1990, the population in MV will even shrink by almost 30 percent. A third of people would be pensioners in 2070. Mind you: the national average. Rural communities would be hit much harder by demographic change. In other words, those where the AfD is particularly strong.

In the 2025 federal election, every second person in most rural communities in MV voted for the “Blues”. In its "government program" for MV, the party is now not only calling for a tough hand against refugees, but also for the "remigration of Syrians." It is certainly legitimate for a village community to decide that it wants to die out. However, denying people the right to live in peace here is not. Regardless of the question of whether they can be exploited as workers or not.

Lili took the first opportunity she could to move from the country to the city. Today she lives in Neubrandenburg, where her three children were born. For a long time, leaving MV completely and moving to a big city was out of the question for the family. While Lili received a residence permit after many years, her husband's asylum application was rejected. "Even after our first daughter was born, the immigration authorities threatened him with deportation." After years of struggle, the family now lives in a reasonably safe situation. Lili is about to become a citizen. But what if the AfD comes to power? "I don't know it. We really have to see what else we can do to live in Germany.«

Her children, her colleagues – “and the good Lord” give her hope. A thoughtful silence spreads until Lili ends the conversation: "You should never give up hope."

The »nd.Genossenschaft« belongs to the people who make it possible: our readers and authors. They are the ones who ensure left-wing journalism for everyone with their contribution: without profit maximization, media companies or tech billionaires.

→ report independently and critically → make topics visible that would otherwise go unnoticed → make voices heard that are often ignored → counter disinformation with facts → initiate and deepen left-wing debates

“Pay voluntarily” now and support the financing of our solidarity-based newspaper. So that nd remains.