Friedrich Merz’s Political Future Hangs in the Balance

He remains in office for two reasons. First, the constitution protects him because he can be replaced only through a constructive vote of no confidence, which requires the Bundestag to elect a successor at the same time. Second, there is no consensus candidate around whom the party and its parliamentary group could immediately unite. Nevertheless, the pressure on the chancellor is immense.

Another Electoral Disaster

In the Saxony-Anhalt state election on 6 September, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) won 43.8% of the party-list vote. The CDU collapsed to 17.2%, losing almost 20 percentage points compared with 2021. For a party that had governed Saxony-Anhalt continuously since 2002, it was a historic defeat.

One week later, the picture in Lower Saxony was less dramatic but equally uncomfortable for the Christian Democrats. In Sunday’s local elections, the CDU remained the largest party at district level with 27.2%. Voters elect the councils of rural districts and independent cities in these contests. The AfD, however, more than tripled its share of the vote to 15.9%, an increase of 11.3 percentage points from 2021.

The CDU’s poor national polling and Merz’s unpopularity are now translating directly into losses at the national and federal level. Lower Saxony CDU State Chairman Sebastian Lechner stated on election night that “anger at Berlin” had been clearly felt during the campaign and demanded “change in Berlin”. By the end of the year, he said, the government needed to make bold decisions on energy prices, housing costs and the burden on employees. Lechner has so far rejected any debate over Merz’s position.

Next Sunday could be worse still. Both Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin will vote, potentially completing a disastrous September for the CDU. The latest polls put the party at just 7% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania leaving it dangerously close to the 5% threshold generally required to enter German parliaments. Depending on the polling institute, the AfD stands at 36%–38%, while the SPD of State Premier Manuela Schwesig is polling at 33%–34%.

Candidates Distance Themselves from Merz

Nationwide, the AfD has climbed to 29% in INSA’s latest voting-intention poll, placing it well ahead of the CDU and CSU at 20%.

Nerves are frayed in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania ahead of Sunday’s election. CDU Lead Candidate Daniel Peters and his state party are fighting for parliamentary survival. Merz will therefore make no further appearances during the final phase of the campaign.

“There is indeed intense criticism of federal politics here in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania”, Peters said. He would communicate this “in no uncertain terms to Berlin”.

Deputy CDU State Chairman Tino Schomann has gone considerably further, openly demanding the chancellor’s resignation. Merz lacks empathy, he says, and people no longer believe him.

Berlin will also vote on 20 September, and the CDU could lose first place there as well. A recent Forschungsgruppe Wahlen poll puts The Left at 23% and the CDU at 21%. The AfD follows at 17%, the Greens at 16% and the SPD at 10%. The current CDU-SPD Senate, as Berlin’s state government is known, would no longer have a majority.

Within two weeks of the debacle in Saxony-Anhalt, Merz could therefore suffer two more heavy defeats.

The Young Union Turns on Merz

The criticism has now reached the party’s youth organization. Clara von Nathusius, Federal Treasurer and member of the national executive of the Junge Union (JU), the joint youth organization of the CDU and CSU, said on Sunday that Merz should not run for chancellor again at the next general election. No more elections could be won with him as chancellor, she stated.

Her position on the AfD is equally noteworthy. Von Nathusius described the so-called Brandmauer, the political refusal to cooperate with the AfD, as a “failed project”. If the AfD invited the CDU in Saxony-Anhalt to talks, she said, the party should first speak to it.

This is not the official position of the Junge Union as a whole. Coming from a member of its national executive, however, the statement carries weight.

Pressure Mounts from Both Party Wings

The CDU’s traditional wings are also becoming increasingly critical. The Christian Democratic Employees’ Association (CDA), the party’s left-leaning social and labor wing, is demanding a change of course. Its Federal Chairman Dennis Radtke has also criticized Merz openly and personally.

“When the chancellor regularly alienates half the country with certain statements, that is counterproductive”, he said. Merz talked about supposedly lazy employees or welfare abuse, while many people were primarily concerned about energy prices, economic insecurity and the loss of industrial jobs.

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Frustration is also growing within the CDU’s business wing, where criticism is increasingly directed at the coalition partner, the SPD. Christian von Stetten, Chairman of the Parliamentary Circle of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (PKM), an influential group of pro-business lawmakers within the CDU and CSU parliamentary group, said SPD Federal Labor Minister Bärbel Bas was no longer tenable in office.

“For months, she has been blocking the reforms our country so urgently needs”, von Stetten said. A senior CDU lawmaker is openly declaring a minister from the coalition partner unfit for office, even as the government’s stability depends on cooperation with that same party.

Until recently, speculation about a successor was largely confined to circles outside the CDU. That has changed. The names now being discussed within the party include North Rhine-Westphalia State Premier Hendrik Wüst and his counterpart in Hesse, Boris Rhein.

There is still no coordinated revolt against Merz, however, nor has anyone emerged who could actually orchestrate his removal in the Bundestag.

The Search for a Successor Begins

CSU Chairman and Bavarian State Premier Markus Söder has ruled out any attempt by his party to bring down the chancellor. Merz remains the right person for the job, Söder argued. At the same time, he has described the CDU as suffering a “serious slump” and demanded faster reforms, lower energy prices and better communication.

Söder is shrewd enough not to put himself forward as a potential successor. His ambitions, however, are well known.

Merz’s Defenses Are Wearing Thin

Merz still possesses all the formal powers of a federal chancellor and CDU chairman. The parliamentary group in the Bundestag has not withdrawn its confidence. The party leadership is not openly opposing him. No challenger has declared a candidacy.

Yet those defenses are wearing thin. A historic defeat in Saxony-Anhalt, poor opinion polls, the CDU’s fight for parliamentary survival in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the danger of another defeat in Berlin are fueling an increasingly open debate over the party’s leader.

Unless history hands Merz another momentous event, as the fall of the Berlin Wall did Helmut Kohl in 1989, the end of his chancellorship is likely to come sooner rather than later.

Electoral defeats, poor opinion polls and criticism of Kohl’s leadership style also mounted in 1988 and 1989. Yet Kohl demonstrated that CDU chancellors who have been written off can survive for a very long time.

Even so, the situation within the Union has reached a dangerous stage. Party colleagues are no longer asking only how Merz can regain his authority. Increasingly, they are asking what the CDU should look like after him.