Merz vows to stay as CDU reels from historic election losses to far-right AfD

Friedrich Merz stood before the cameras on Monday morning with the wreckage of his party's worst electoral performance in nearly eight decades at his back. The German chancellor had just watched his conservative CDU crash out of a state parliament for the first time since 1945, failing to clear the 5 percent threshold needed to enter the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania legislature. In that former East German state—the home ground of Angela Merkel, the CDU's towering predecessor—the party managed just 4.9 percent of the vote. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland, by contrast, surged to 38 percent, more than doubling its support and claiming the largest share in the state. It was the second catastrophic result in a fortnight. Two weeks earlier, the AfD had romped to a majority in Saxony-Anhalt. Now, with Berlin's hard-left Die Linke having seized the capital's majority from the CDU, the political ground beneath Merz's feet was visibly shifting.

Yet Merz refused to budge. At 70 years old, sixteen months into his chancellorship, facing an approval rating that had cratered to 13 percent, he sat down with party elders and state governors and emerged to declare his intention to stay. "I am grateful that we have heard from the Social Democrats this morning that they intend to remain part of the coalition in Berlin," he said, his voice steady. "That applies to us too, and it applies to me as well. Together, we are determined to rise to the historic challenges facing our country." The SPD, his junior coalition partner, had indeed signaled its commitment to the government that morning—a lifeline Merz seized immediately. He called the election results a "profound turning point" for the political centre and for his party, but insisted the reasons went far beyond his own person. When asked directly if he felt he had sufficient support within the CDU to remain, he flatly denied there had been any personnel debate. "There has been neither a personnel question nor a personnel debate yesterday or today," he said.

But the pressure was real and mounting. Some within the party had begun whispering about a Kanzlertausch—a chancellor swap—and critics pointed out that Merz's approval numbers were among the worst any German leader had faced. The AfD's co-leader Alice Wiedel, sensing blood in the water, declared that her party had become the true "people's party" of Germany and had "reached the mainstream." The Kremlin, watching from Moscow, was not shy about its satisfaction. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed the AfD's gains reflected German voters' frustration with Berlin's refusal to buy cheap Russian gas—a transparent attempt to claim credit for a far-right surge that had far more to do with economic anxiety, migration concerns, and the slow-motion collapse of Germany's industrial base.

That collapse was on full display across the country on the same day Merz was fighting for his political life. Tens of thousands of automotive workers walked factory floors at Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and other manufacturers, demanding government and management intervention to save their jobs. Volkswagen alone had announced plans to eliminate 100,000 positions over the next three years. BMW and Mercedes were cutting their workforces as well. The crisis was existential: Chinese electric vehicle makers, with cheaper models and in some cases more advanced technology, had upended the market. German carmakers, slower to transition away from combustion engines, were losing sales and market share at a pace that demanded wholesale retooling. Union leaders, pointing to the state subsidies flowing to Chinese competitors, were calling for their own government to step in with energy subsidies, financial support, or trade protections. The fear was not abstract—it was the fear of entire communities built around plants that might not survive the decade.

Merz's government was attempting to address these pressures through tax, welfare, and pension reforms designed to boost growth and competitiveness. But voters in the three state elections had sent a different message. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the centre-left SPD had run a campaign positioning itself as a bulwark against the far-right and had come close behind the AfD with 35.5 percent, suggesting they had pulled votes from other mainstream parties including the CDU. In Berlin, the hard-left Die Linke, campaigning on housing expropriation and the cost-of-living crisis, had surged to 25.7 percent and looked positioned to form the next city government. Merz responded by pledging legislation to prevent mass expropriations, arguing they would destroy jobs and worsen the housing shortage they were meant to solve. But the political momentum was not with him.

Merz had cancelled a planned trip to New York to address the UN General Assembly, recognizing that he needed to be in Berlin to manage the fallout. Berenberg bank's chief economist Holger Schmieding captured the precariousness of his position: "Friedrich Merz is fighting for his political survival. Although Merz has vowed to stay on as chancellor to spearhead the much needed pro-growth reforms, it will not be easy for him to contain the unrest within his party." Education Minister Karin Prien, a deputy CDU leader, had told television that swapping out the chancellor would not solve the party's deeper problems. "So we must now discuss with one another—together with the chancellor as a government, and on the other hand as a party—how we win more acceptance and more credibility among the population," she said. For now, Merz had the SPD's commitment and the backing of eight state governors. But as long as no clear successor was ready to move against him, and as long as he refused to step aside, a volatile deadlock would persist. The question was not whether Merz could survive the week, but whether he could survive the year.