Eight German state premiers back Merz amid speculation over future
Christian Democratic Union leadership throws its weight behind the chancellor ahead of two state elections this weekend.
Eight German state premiers support Merz as speculation grows over his future
Friedrich Merz is under mounting scrutiny over whether he should stay on as chancellor and continue leading the CDU.
The heads of eight German states have expressed support for the country’s chancellor as speculation intensifies about his political future.
The premiers — all members of Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) — said that rebuilding trust in their party depends on “listening and taking political action, not in debates over personnel”.
Merz, who has been in office for only 16 months, is dealing with weak approval ratings while the anti-immigration, far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is rising, raising doubts about whether he is an electoral liability.
He has promised to stay on, but two more state elections on Sunday are being viewed as an important test of his leadership.
Talk of a “Kanzlertausch” — or “Chancellor swap” — has circulated for months, but it has grown since the conservative CDU fell to a distant second behind the AfD in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt at the beginning of September.
The AfD surged to 43.8% of the vote while the CDU dropped to 17.2%, the first time since World War Two that a far-right party has come close to taking control of a German state.
It remains three seats short of an outright majority, and the main parties would not form a coalition with the AfD, although it could try to establish a minority government.
After the defeat, Merz hit back, calling the AfD — which wants to restore ties with Russia — a “destructive force” whose migration policy amounted to an “ethnic cleansing” of skilled workers.
In reply to Merz’s migration comments, the AfD said it was filing a defamation complaint against the chancellor over what it described as “baseless” and “disgusting” claims.
The chancellor’s blunt communication style and personal unpopularity — with only 14% saying he is the right person for the job, according to a recent Bild poll — have prompted questions about his ability to lead both Germany and the CDU.
Still, the CDU’s eight state premiers wrote that “now more than ever, Germany's political landscape needs stability”.
“Our country will continue to need a stable and effective federal government with its own majority in the Bundestag [German parliament],” said the leaders of Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia.
Their statement followed backing for Merz from Markus Söder, Bavaria’s premier and leader of the CDU’s sister party, the CSU.
An unnamed party source told Reuters that CDU officials will meet on Sunday to coordinate the party’s response to the results of that day’s state elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, where the AfD is expected to make further gains and the CDU further losses.
Even so, the contest is much more evenly balanced in the German capital than it was in Saxony-Anhalt, with the CDU and Die Linke (The Left) competing for first place and the AfD and Greens close behind in the polls.
In Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, polls place the AfD ahead of the centre-left SPD but likely well short of an outright majority.
For Merz, the worst-case outcome would be for the CDU to lose power in Berlin and fail to win enough votes even to secure a presence in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania’s parliament.
Unlike in the UK, Germany is not accustomed to changing its leader mid-term, though in theory Merz could be pushed to resign or face a vote of no confidence, an outcome many see as unlikely.
No one inside the CDU has yet said they are prepared to challenge Merz, but the speculation about his future has led to several names — including Söder, North Rhine-Westphalia premier Hendrik Wüst and German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt — being mentioned as possible successors.
Even before Merz was formally made chancellor, he succeeded in rallying support for a huge €500bn ($547bn; £420bn) defence infrastructure fund, and his direct style and emphasis on European security won him praise internationally.
But it took him three attempts to become CDU leader, and he lost an initial vote to become chancellor despite technically having enough votes through a coalition agreement with the SPD. It was a first in post-war Germany.
That points to a record of struggling to win over even people in his own camp — and suggests he may be reluctant to give up a role he has long wanted.