Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Berlin takeaways

A two-for-one offer in the German elections department today, 20.09.2026: a state election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and a state/city election in Berlin. Let's pour a cup of chamomile tea to steady our nerves and take them one by one.

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

As with Sachsen-Anhalt, which voted two weeks ago, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is former DDR territory. It has two pronounced geographical characteristics: the roughly 2'000 km (it's very ragged) coastline with the Ostsee, the Baltic Sea; it is also the German state with the lowest population density.

Its pre-DDR history is complex and not really relevant here, but we should note that the historical Pomerania, particularly during its time as a Prussian province, was traditionally regarded as an educationally and culturally backward region – female servants and menials were often stereotyped by city-dwellers (especially in Berlin) as Pommerinnen, people aus der Provinz 'from the Provinces'.

So let's see where they put their crosses. The first exit poll results:

In the early prognosis (18:01) the AfD is ahead, the CDU has only just made it over the 5% bar (meaning big trouble for Chancellor Merz), everyone else, apart from the AfD and Sara Wagenknecht's BSW has lost votes. In this scenario, the AfD only needs a few seats to be able to form a government, most obviously those of the BSW (a similar situation to Sachsen-Anhalt). Wagenknecht is a mad lefty of the first chop, but opposes mass migration and fighting for Ukraine, making the BSW an improbably good fit for the AfD. She has shown herself in the past to be erratic, so we shall see.

Berlin

The accidental contrast in today's election pair: as already noted, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is the German state with the lowest population density (c. 70/km²) while Berlin has by far the highest population density (c. 4'214/km²). We can expect a marked division between city and country politics. The theory of overcrowding in rat cages leading to aggression and deviant behaviour holds good in the teeming bedlam of Berlin. Still, let's not be beastly to the Berliners.

Berlin is in big trouble. After the German reunification which completed in 1990 and in which Berlin became once more the capital of a united Germany, taking over from the sleepy, provincial Bonn, the hopes were high and a financial and cultural boom began. It didn't take long before the wheels came off the boom. Without having to write a long-winded and depressing analysis of what went wrong, suffice it to say that the current state of the city, under the control of a black (CDU) and red (SPD) government, is verging on catastrophic.

Almost every aspect of administration and government in Berlin is deeply dysfunctional: traffic is a nightmare, made worse by road closures for major events, frequent demonstrations, state visits and so on; the city centre in particular is disgustingly dirty, with the subway in particular and even the S-Bahn a dirty and dangerous mode of travel, full of druggies and beggers; the dealing and consumption of drugs is open and goes unpunished; the shortage of flats has driven up rents – for those who can find a property – dramatically; the lefties in the Government and administration – of whom there are an awful lot – are now buying up flats into public ownership, making the situation much worse; to cap it all, the deep red mindset has metastisized into an aggressive ansitsemitism, causing what was a substantial Jewish population after reunification to pack their bags and go somewhere safer.

It is fair to say that extreme left-wing politics has been the motor for this dysfunction. The CDU has been a part of the coalition running Berlin, but – as almost everywhere else in Germany – has collapsed before the red wave.

Here is how they voted. The first exit poll results:

The ungovernable chaos that is Berlin in two simple charts. The Linke will have the first crack at forming a coalition (God help Berlin and God help the Jews), which they can do easily with the SPD and the Greens; everyone else is irrelevant. The AfD has made a good showing in difficult territory. It will have a significant presence, but will simply be ignored or shouted down.

We'll take another look at the situation when the calculated prognosis is available around 20:00.

Charts from ARD.de.