Merz clings on after German election ‘disaster’

By Andreas Rinke and Matthias Williams

BERLIN, Sept 21 (Reuters) – Chancellor Friedrich Merz was clinging to power on Monday after his conservative party tumbled to its worst regional election defeat in postwar Germany and members of his coalition clashed over his unpopular reform agenda. 

Merz himself described Sunday’s loss in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania as a “disaster” after his Christian Democrats (CDU) missed the minimum threshold to enter the regional parliament.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) took first place. While it fell well short of a majority, it was the second time it had topped a state election within a month and sees its regional wins as building momentum towards national power.  

Merz’s party also bled votes in a second election in the state of Berlin, which could see the far-left Die Linke party, the descendants of the Communist Party that once ran East Germany, take power in a coalition after winning most seats.

GERMAN CHANCELLOR’S FUTURE IN THE BALANCE 

Sunday’s results may not prove a knock-out blow for Merz, but his low approval ratings and the AfD’s surge have left his future hanging in the balance. 

Several conservative state premiers met on Sunday to take stock after publicly backing Merz in an open letter last week. 

“The meeting was not about a revolt or a plot against Chancellor Merz,” one of the participants of the meeting told Reuters. “However, there was agreement that the chancellor needs to deliver more following the CDU’s difficult results in the state elections.” 

On Monday Merz repeated a pledge to press on with his reform agenda, which he says is vital to revive sluggish growth in Europe’s largest economy.

“… but we know that we also owe it to people to provide answers to their concerns and fears,” he added. Merz said there had been no discussion about his position.

Sunday’s elections have brought tensions with some members of Merz’s centre-left Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners to the surface, with calls to pull back on some aspects of the reform programme, including pensions.

“We can’t just carry on like this,” said SPD co-party leader Baerbel Bas.

Germany’s economy has been struggling since the pandemic to regain momentum, with competition from China as well as higher energy prices challenging its export-driven economic model.

Some business leaders urged Merz to stay the course.

“Economic strength is not built by waiting but by actively shaping the future. We cannot afford to lose momentum now,” said Jochen Hanebeck, the CEO of chipmaker Infineon, in a LinkedIn post.

BITTER PILL FOR GERMANY’S IMMIGRANTS

The AfD party leads in national opinion polls but has been kept from power by the other main parties’ refusal to work with it, in a policy known as the “firewall” that has been increasingly scrutinised as the AfD gained strength. Its hardline stance on immigration has left some in Germany of migrant background questioning their future.

“The fact that the AfD is in the lead is quite a bitter pill to swallow,” said Yasmin Goudarzi, an educational scientist.

In Berlin, Die Linke topped the polls in a state election for the first time on a campaign to nationalise housing from corporate landlords and put a cap on rents, echoing the rise of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. 

Merz, who was elected last year on a promise to return Germany to growth, has struggled to win over voters, as a stream of communication missteps served to compound resentment over pension, tax and healthcare reforms.

Manuela Schwesig, the popular Social Democrat state premier of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, whose success in limiting AfD gains was one of the few positive aspects of the election from the coalition government’s perspective, was often strongly critical of the chancellor during the campaign.

Schwesig, sometimes seen as a potential next SPD national leader, is likely to remain in power in her state.

She said the AfD had won votes by criticising Germany’s support for Ukraine, a message that the Kremlin also capitalised on in comments by its spokesperson on Monday.

The AfD wants to restore ties with Moscow and characterises sanctions on Russia as self-sabotaging, by cutting off access to Russia’s vast cheap energy resources.

Some Germans in Schwerin, the state capital of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, expressed concern about the rise of the far-right AfD in a country still troubled by its Nazi past.

“The troublemakers who voted for the AfD clearly weren’t paying attention in history class,” said Detlef Spelker, a passerby.

“We’ve been in a similar situation before, almost 100 years ago. Inflation, problems with jobs, nobody had any money. We’ll see what this brings now.”

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel on Monday again rejected accusations that her party was the heir to the Nazis, branding Adolf Hitler a “left-wing extremist”. She said the AfD had now replaced Merz’s CDU as the real home for right-leaning Germans.

(Reporting by Andreas Rinke, Matthias Williams, Hakan Ersen; Writing by Matthias WilliamsEditing by Alexandra Hudson and Gareth Jones)