Merz has no good answers as the far right targets his downfall

BERLIN — Germany’s far right is moving to turn its landslide election victory into a knockout blow against Friedrich Merz and his beleaguered conservatives — and the chancellor appears at a loss over how to respond.

Merz seemed to have no clear plan for saving himself and his party as his government confronted its biggest political crisis yet, beyond ambiguous promises to become a better, more empathetic politician 16 months into his chancellorship.

“We are all deeply shocked,” Merz said Monday, after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) reached a new high in Saxony-Anhalt’s weekend election while support for his Christian Democratic Union fell by more than half. “This is the worst election defeat the CDU has suffered in years — or even decades,” the chancellor added. “Of course, there will have to be consequences.”

But what those consequences will be remains uncertain. Merz’s dismal approval ratings and the AfD’s convincing win have fueled speculation that his conservatives could seek a Kanzlertausch, or “chancellor swap,” to revive their political fortunes. But Merz said Monday that he would remain in office and stay the course on economic reforms he argues are long overdue and will, with time, solve the country’s economic problems.

The AfD has made little secret of its intent to turn the election loss into a still greater debacle for Merz. The far-right party is openly courting conservative lawmakers in Saxony-Anhalt to defect and join its ranks — a strategy aimed not only at securing the three additional seats it needs to govern alone, but also at fracturing the conservatives and breaking Merz’s control of his party.

“The conservative bloc will never again be able to win a federal election, that is a fact,” AfD national co-leader Alice Weidel said in Berlin on Monday. “The gap between us and them is already at 10 percent, and my stated goal is to significantly widen that gap in the shortest possible time.”

Merz on Monday acknowledged that he is part of the problem. Only 9 percent of people voting in Saxony-Anhalt approved of his performance as chancellor, according to one exit poll for German public television.

“I know that my persona, too, has been a recurring topic in this election campaign,” Merz said. Germans are anxious about their economic wellbeing and security in turbulent times, he went on, adding: “We must try — myself included — to connect more deeply with people, including their full range of emotions.”

Under pressure

The pressure on Merz is likely only to build in the next weeks, particularly as elections loom in two eastern regions on Sept. 20. Merz’s CDU is headed for clear defeat in the state of Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, where the AfD is ahead of all other parties. In Berlin, where the CDU is currently governing, the party is likely to fall out of power to a coalition of left-wing parties.

With four more state elections set for next year, conservatives face a clear choice: continue confronting the rising far right under a deeply unpopular chancellor, or fundamentally change course with a new leader at the helm.

Merz appeared to acknowledge the dilemma his party is facing. “This election result is causing major upheaval, not only in our country, but also within my party,” he said Monday. “I take this extremely seriously, and I intend to do my best over the coming days and weeks to personally address the gravity of the situation.”

While most of the talk of replacing Merz is taking place in private, signs of conservative dissatisfaction with Merz’s leadership are beginning to spill out into the open.

“Anyone who wants to regain trust and credibility must, in the wake of such a result, question everything,” CDU lawmaker Sepp Müller wrote in a social media post. 

“After a result like this, we cannot simply carry on as usual,” Gordon Schnieder, the CDU state premier of Rhineland-Palatinate, wrote on X. “If the democratic center wants to regain trust, we must start with ourselves. It is not up to the people to better understand our politics. We must deliver what people expect from politics: less conflict, clear decisions, and concrete results.”

‘Matter of compassion’

The AfD is attacking the chancellor on multiple policy fronts — hitting him on migration, blaming his energy policies for the country’s industrial malaise and pushing for the restoration of cheap energy flows from Russia.

But many of the AfD’s most effective attacks are merely tactical.

Even as the AfD seeks to win power in Saxony-Anhalt by attempting to peel off conservative defectors, the party is presenting itself as willing to work with the CDU, knowing full well that Merz would not sanction a collapse of the “firewall” that keeps centrist parties from cooperating with the far right. 

This allows the AfD to simultaneously attack Merz as ignoring the will of the people in the face of the party’s surging popularity, while also depicting conservatives as leftists in disguise for preferring to work with an array of left-wing parties.

The election in Saxony-Anhalt illustrates the strategic dilemma the CDU faces — and one the AfD is benefiting from. To avoid governing with the AfD, the CDU would theoretically have to work with every other party in state parliament, all of them on the political left, including the far left. As conservatives buckle under the strain of governing alongside ideological opposites, the AfD hopes that growing divisions over the firewall will ultimately bring about Merz’s downfall.

“People have lost confidence in the party,” the AfD’s Weidel said Monday. “Before elections, they always promise one thing. And after the elections, they do the exact opposite. And that’s how every party loses the acceptance and trust of its voters. No chancellor before has been as unpopular as Friedrich Merz, who has become a major obstacle to Germany’s prosperous development.”

Tino Chrupalla, the AfD’s other national leader, said that if the CDU does not abandon the firewall, it would mark the party’s end. If the party “continue down this path,” he said, “then in the short term there will no longer be a CDU in eastern Germany.”

While these AfD’s attack lines are proving highly effective, Merz offered no clear plan on Monday for countering them — other than, in effect, becoming a better politician.

“This isn’t just a matter of rational political understanding — it’s also a matter of compassion, empathy, and emotions,” a somber-sounding Merz told reporters in Berlin. “I’m not the type to wear my emotions on my sleeve every day, but the public wants to see different answers.”

He acknowledged he had failed to connect with voters — but suggested there was still time for him to learn.

“It’s certainly true that I have this problem — and you can see it in the polls — that many people don’t follow me in my thinking and in how I assess things,” Merz said. “That’s my responsibility, and I accept it. I’ll try to do things differently — to do better — in the coming weeks and months.”

The question is whether his party will be that patient.