Expert: Berlin Pride attack polarizing key German election campaigns

The suspected Islamist terrorist attack on Berlin will have a significant impact on election campaigns in three eastern German states, a leading political scientist warned on Tuesday.

"We're already seeing the focus of the media, and thus also of the public, shift," Professor Thorsten Faas told dpa on Tuesday. "Issues of domestic security and integration are taking centre stage."

Faas fears that the attack on Saturday - which left a Polish woman killed and 29 injured in the German capital's Tiergarten park during Berlin's Pride celebrations - could "lead to even greater polarization."

The attack came weeks before elections are due to be held in Saxony-Anhalt on September 6, and in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin on September 20.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is leading in polling for all three states and could even win an unprecedented absolute majority in Saxony-Anhalt, allowing it to take power in a regional government for the first time.

Faas noted that attacks such as the one on Berlin Pride - where a 21-year-old suspect with ties to Islamist circles was shot dead following a day-long manhunt - "tend to play into the hands of right-wing parties."

However, the fact that the LGBT+ community was apparently targeted could also "mobilize the centre-left," he added. In addition, with nearly two months until election day in Berlin, Faas said the issue "won't dominate public discourse for eight weeks - too much else is happening."

Recriminations fly in Berlin election campaign

The attack has already taken centre stage in the Berlin election campaign, where the leading candidate for the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) accused The Left party on Monday of "denying reality" regarding Islamism.

CDU candidate Stefan Evers' criticism followed an Instagram post by a Berlin district branch of the hard-left party that initially did not refer to investigators' suspicion that Saturday's attack was Islamist-motivated.

The Green Party's lead candidate in the state election, Werner Graf, called Evers' comments "undignified," accusing the CDU politician of turning the attack into an election issue rather than focusing on solidarity with victims and presenting a united response against terrorism. 

"I am disappointed that it has taken just one and a half days for the CDU, under Stefan Evers, to switch into election campaign mode," he said.

The attack has also produced a national policy debate on how it could have been prevented, with several CDU members demanding a tightening of youth sentencing laws, as the suspect was free despite several convictions.

Evers, who replaced Mayor Kai Wegner as the CDU's top candidate earlier this month after a tennis-related scandal, has also called for a ban on extremist mosques.

"We must ensure that mosque associations where anti-constitutional views are preached are banned," he told the broadcasters RTL and ntv.

Islamism, like any other form of extremism, threatens Germany's freedom, he said.