Is Germany’s leader Friedrich Merz doomed as far right wins again?

By Sebastian Shukla, CNN

Berlin (CNN) — “It is a disaster.”

Those were the words of a forlorn-looking German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Sunday evening as he addressed his party in the seconds after regional elections handed his center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) their second and third electoral drubbings in a month.

The elections in the north-eastern region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the city of Berlin not only reopen the barely healed wounds from the Saxony-Anhalt election on September 6, but have plunged the party to new depths of unpopularity.

Voters are abandoning the CDU –– the party of Angela Merkel and Konrad Adenauer –– in their droves, for the far-right, pro-Russia and anti-migration Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The AfD has once again demonstrated it is a major political force in this country.

On Sunday, Merz ruled out stepping down, saying Germany requires “courage, steadfastness and patience. I will demonstrate these qualities as Chairman of the CDU and, above all, as Chancellor of our country.”

Before Sunday speculation was rife about Merz’s survival. In the aftermath, he is now fighting for his political life.

In Mecklenberg-Vorpommern, the CDU’s prospects of making it into the parliament are hanging by a thread. Needing 5% to reach the threshold, they currently sit at 4.9% on projections.

The party’s previous worst regional election performance in 75 years was 9% in Bremen in 1951.

The AfD is projected to win the election with 38.3% of the vote, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, although it fell far short of a majority. In Berlin it came in third, but saw a 7% increase in its vote share.

The CDU was the incumbent party in the German capital but has lost its grip on power there to the far-left Die Linke party, which is projected to come out on top. The CDU fell into second place.

Sunday’s results, coupled with the trouncing in Saxony-Anhalt earlier this month, heap misery on an already beleaguered Merz. A situation that, some believe, means only one outcome is possible –– a ‘chancellor-swap.”

“This is the worst possible result for Merz and the CDU,” Jana Puglierin, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Berlin office, told CNN as the results were announced.

She said she saw no viable option for Merz to continue to lead the government, adding: “He has definitely lost control over his own party, and he has lost authority big time… and there is no way to reinstall it.”

Following the AfD’s election victory in Saxony-Anhalt, the party’s co-leader, Alice Weidel, declared there would be national elections in Germany before the end of the year. She doubled down on Sunday, saying “the CDU cannot continue with Friedrich Merz, with a weak chancellor.”

With two more elections going against the CDU, and Merz’s popularity plunging, that assessment seems less speculative.

“It’s not like Merz can just throw in the towel, nor does he want to,” Sudha David-Wilp, vice-president and senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, a think tank, told CNN. “He’s still hanging on, but he’s not out of the woods yet.”

Any such upheaval would have reverberations around Europe. Germany, the EU’s most populous and economically powerful nation, has long stood as a rock of political stability and is a key backer of Ukraine as it fights Russia.

Tanking poll numbers

The Christian Democrats have long been the dominant political force in Germany. Of the 10 chancellors since World War II, the party has held the post six times – including a mammoth 16 years under the Angela Merkel.

An opinion poll from September encapsulates Merz’s woes. Levels of dissatisfaction across the country are eye-wateringly bad. Only 13% of Germans are happy with the job he is doing, according to a poll for ARD public television released earlier this month.

David-Wilp told CNN that AfD victories in the elections had been “baked” into the CDU’s political calculus, but the magnitudes of the outcomes were worse than expected.

“There is a feeling in the CDU that something has to happen in order to change the dynamic, because the AfD is on the march and threatening the very existence of the CDU,” she said.

Whilst the regions that make up the former East Germany are AfD strongholds, Merz’s problem lies in the party’s rise in popularity across the country. In two other state elections this year the AfD doubled its percentage share of the vote, while winning neither.

Nationally, too, opinion polling suggests the AfD would be Germany’s biggest political party were a snap general election to be held now.

Merz arrived in office in May last year promising to halve the AfD’s vote share –– so far the opposite has been true.

Turmoil in Germany

Such was the pressure on the chancellor last week that the other CDU state premiers felt it necessary to rally around him. They issued a joint statement Wednesday saying public support comes from “listening” and “political action” not “through personnel debates,” but failed to mention him by name.

Replacing a chancellor mid-term is not uncommon, but a removal under these circumstances is. It would also make Merz the shortest-serving chancellor since reunification. His conservatives and their grand coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), would have to agree on his successor, no easy feat.

For David-Wilp, replacing Merz would “really leave a crisis of leadership when everybody is looking to Berlin for it.”

Puglierin said that Merz’s ascension to power had been accompanied by hope across Europe that he would restore stability after the disastrous previous coalition led by Olaf Scholz, and would “keep the club together” at a time when the United States under President Donald Trump was ripping up the “Pax Americana” that had underpinned international relations since World War II.

Those hopes could end in disappointment, Puglierin said, “because the country is looking inward… We are struggling with our political system that is no longer functioning the way it has done since the Federal Republic was founded in 1949.”

Merz’s problems – some his own, others not

Merz’s issues began before he even formally had the keys to the chancellery.

It took him two attempts to be officially confirmed as chancellor, an unprecedented scenario. Then he reneged on an election promise not to increase Germany’s borrowing, by unlocking half a trillion dollars of spending for defense and infrastructure.

Puglierin said personal characteristics –– poor communication skills, impulsiveness and a lack of emotional control –– “have put people off him.”

In April, Merz made questionable remarks about Trump’s war in Iran. The chancellor said the US president was being “humiliated” by Iran in efforts to end the war.

The comments drew the ire of the president, and upended the charm offensive by Berlin toward the White House. Before Merz’s comments, one official had remarked to CNN that they were pleased to have remained one of the few allies who had not been lashed by the sharp-tongue of the US president.

Yet there is also little denying that factors outside of Merz’s control have combined to create roadblocks to progress.

“The geopolitical backdrop of challenges that Germany is facing –– the war against Ukraine, inflation in Germany and energy costs –– all mean the economic model has been overturned in Germany,” said David-Wilp.

“Merz was never a beloved figure, or the first choice to be chancellor,” she added, but outside factors and his “inability to communicate has created a crisis for Berlin.”

No other viable candidate?

Merz may still be saved by the lack of an obvious successor as chancellor and the dire situation his removal would leave the government in.

Neither member of Germany’s two-party coalition government wants it to collapse, said Puglierin, given polling numbers are not in their favor. A new coalition would likely mean a return to a three-party government, a formula which failed spectacularly in recent memory under Olaf Scholz. A repeat of that “won’t solve Merz’s problem(s),” said Puglierin.

The other challenge lies in finding a competent candidate who is ready to take the reins. The name on many people’s lips is that of the 51-year-old governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst.

“He is viewed as the heir apparent in the CDU. He is not a seasoned politician, but he may have to stand up earlier than anticipated,” said David-Wilp.

Wüst, formerly a lawyer, has led North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state and an industrial powerhouse, since 2021. One of the few remaining regions where the CDU has a stable majority, it has its own state election in early 2027.

Wüst “would be eager to be chancellor one day, but not under these circumstances,” said Puglierin, adding that the election in North Rhine-Westphalia is crucial for the CDU.

“To change horses (in the election) on such short notice is a risky game,” Puglierin said, but added that she believes Wüst is the only candidate the SPD would agree to work with were Merz to be out of the picture.

Wüst, though, has said he wants to focus on winning the state election, and that Merz has his full support.

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