When German media publish the first projections of the Brandenburg election results at six o'clock this evening on Sunday, it will still be midday for Olaf Scholz. The chancellor will be more than 6,000 kilometers away from Potsdam, the federal state capital that surrounds the cosmopolitan capital Berlin. He will represent Germany at the UN Future Summit in New York.
The German media analyzed the situation with a certain sarcasm: New York seems to be a good place for Scholz to observe the election events from a distance. The chancellor will not gain much ground in the regional elections, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is fighting against the social democrats of the SPD for the top spot.