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Brandenburg holds election a year before federal vote

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Eastern state is traditional stronghold of Scholz's SPD

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AfD win could heap pressure on Scholz over second term

(Updates first paragraph and adds polls closing time in

paragraph 5)

By Sarah Marsh

BERLIN, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Germans in the state of

Brandenburg were voting in a regional election on Sunday with

the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) expected to finish

first, building on successes in other eastern states and beating

Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats in one of their

traditional strongholds.

The AfD became the first far-right party to win a state

election in Germany since World War Two, in Thuringia, on Sept.

1 and just missed first place in Saxony on the same day.

However, other parties refuse to work with the AfD in

coalition governments and given it did not win a majority in

Thuringia or Saxony and is unlikely to do so in Brandenburg, the

party is not set to be part of a regional government.

The AfD is one of several far-right groups in Europe

capitalising on worries over an economic slowdown, immigration

and the Ukraine war - concerns that are particularly strong in

formerly Communist eastern Germany. It is also seeking to gain

from discontent over infighting in Scholz's three-party federal

coalition.

Polls close in Brandenburg at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT) and the

first exit polls and preliminary projections will be announced

as soon as voting ends.

Hans-Christoph Berndt, the AfD candidate for Brandenburg

state premier, cast his ballot in the town of Golssen, south of

Berlin, expressing optimism about his party's prospects compared

to the last state election in 2019.

"If we continue to receive the same level of support we've

seen in recent weeks and months, things in Germany will start to

improve," Berndt said, adding that while the election was

important, Brandenburg's future wouldn't be decided solely by

Sunday's outcome.

An AfD victory in the state election would be a particular

embarrassment for the Social Democrats (SPD), which has won

elections in Brandenburg and governed the state of 2.5 million

people since East and West Germany were reunified in 1990.

It would also raise further questions about the suitability

of Scholz, the least popular German chancellor on record, to

lead the party into next year's federal election.

Brandenburg's popular SPD premier, Dietmar Woidke, has

mostly shunned campaigning with Scholz, who lives in the state's

capital, Potsdam. Woidke has also criticised the country's

ruling coalition's behaviour and policies.

Instead, he has sought to highlight economic successes

during the five years since the last state election such as the

opening of a Tesla factory and Brandenburg airport -

which serves Berlin and is now Germany's third most important

aviation hub.

NARROW THE GAP

In recent weeks, opinion polls have shown the SPD narrowing

the gap with the AfD.

A poll published by pollster Forschungsgruppe Wahlen on

Thursday put the AfD on 28% in Brandenburg with the SPD on 27%,

followed by the conservatives on 14% and the new leftist Sahra

Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) on 13%.

"My greatest challenge in this legislative period ... is to

not allow right-wing extremists to have anything to say in this

country ever again," Woidke said at a campaign event on Tuesday.

He has threatened to resign if his party comes in behind the

AfD. AfD national party leader Tino Chrupalla said Scholz should

do the same.

"It is high time this government suffer the consequences

after this state election," Chrupalla said.

Both of Scholz's junior coalition partners, the Free

Democrats and the Greens, look set to struggle to win the 5%

needed to enter the state parliament, polls show.

At a national level, the three parties in Scholz's coalition

are now collectively polling less than the opposition

conservatives although political analysts say much could change

before the federal election due in September 2025.