CDU After the Elections: Merz Has No Chance – One He Could Seize
The CDU loses in Berlin and fails to clear the five-percent threshold in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The pressure on Chancellor Merz is mounting as a result. He nevertheless wants to press on. The only question is: how?
Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz issued a statement immediately after the polling stations closed. The timing was surprising, coming before it was even clear whether his party would be expelled from a state parliament for the first time. The content, however, was forward-looking: implement reforms, enable growth, stand firm.
The only problem is that it was a statement that might have been fitting a year ago. As things stand, what viewers could observe on Sunday evening at 6:14 p.m. was a chancellor engaged in a qualified monologue with himself and his party. A message to himself: Friedrich, this is your role now. And a message to his party: You don't have anyone else who can or wants to do this right now – so stop muttering about my downfall.
Will Merz Remain in Office Until the End of His Term?
The end of Friedrich Merz's chancellorship is sealed in any case. The Union will not nominate him for another term. The only question now is whether Merz will remain chancellor until a regular federal election.
"Or do you have someone else?" He didn't ask the question. But that is how one could interpret Merz. He knows that he is as unpopular among large swathes of the German public as no chancellor before him. That his party has suffered three heavy to disastrous defeats over two election weekends. That his federal government is currently dividing more than it is uniting. And that none of his announcements have yet become reality – regardless, incidentally, of whether in domestic or foreign policy, which is supposedly this chancellor's great hobby horse.
Seizing the Opportunity
Can this government still amount to something? From Merz's perspective: yes! But only under one condition: he must seize the opportunity he no longer really has. Play with freedom. Or – different sport, same principle – take the reins, spur the horse on, and ride not toward the sunset but toward the finish line.
Implement reforms, reshape the government when progress stalls, and keep speeches to a minimum. Because right now, many people simply do not want to hear much more from this chancellor.
Is that good for the political mood of a country where more and more people are voting at the fringes or beyond, because they see no other way out? Probably not. Fresh elections or peculiar musings about minority governments are even less so.
Merz has made it clear that he wants to continue. But does his party want that too? Its leadership must now say so quickly. And quickly does not mean quickly in the sense of the government's decisions so far. It means today, tomorrow, this week. Because the worst outcome would be months of back and forth.
Clarity about who is leading this country: if that emerges from this election night, that would at least be a result worthy of respect.
