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2026-09-22 Europe
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'A Mixture of Grief and Arrogance.' Merz Admits Failure, But Reluctant to Resign
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Gregor Spitzen
| See more about the election here. |
[Regnum] On the evening of the elections to the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the Berlin House of Representatives, German Chancellor and chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Friedrich Merz unexpectedly announced his intention to speak to the press and announce something important.
The Chancellor's evening address is highly unusual for state parliament elections. It's therefore unsurprising that both the media and many of her fellow party members were gripped by anticipation yesterday: could it be that the CDU will soon have a new party leader, and Germany itself a new head of government?
Shortly after the first forecasts were released, Merz appeared before the cameras with his signature expression, a mixture of grief, discontent, and arrogance. "The result in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is a disaster," he declared.
And here one can quite agree with the Chancellor, since the CDU was expelled from the state parliament without passing the five percent threshold – for the first time in its history.
The Christian Democrats fared only slightly better in the capital region. There, the CDU came in second, losing "only" 9.4% of the vote compared to the 2021 elections. However, they certainly lost their mayoral seat, which will now likely be filled by Elif Eralp of Die Linke, who won with a phenomenal 25.7%.
The Chancellor anticipated a difficult election night. So he invited the state minister presidents and members of the party presidium to Berlin on Sunday to discuss the future—his own, the party's, the government's, and the reform programs that, after Merz's eighteen months in office, had failed to materialize.
The details of the informal party congress are currently known only from anonymous insider comments. According to one participant, Merz indirectly proposed resigning as party chairman. This was discussed, but the proposal was quickly dismissed by party members as "irresponsible."
If the positions of party chairman and chancellor were separated, it would have caused, as in the last three years of Angela Merkel's presidency, "absolute instability" in the party. Indeed, Merz concluded his speech shortly thereafter with precisely this message.
"What needs to be done now requires firmness, resilience, and patience, " he said. " I will demonstrate these as chairman of the CDU party and, above all, as federal chancellor of our country."
Thus, Merz, still deeply convinced that all of Germany's problems were caused by the machinations of geopolitical opponents and "internal troublemakers" from "marginal parties," wanted to nip in the bud any discussion about personnel issues.
Although many believed the Chancellor's days were numbered after the fiasco in Saxony-Anhalt, Merz received a letter of support from eight minister-presidents of the federal states.
And on Sunday, the head of the influential parliamentary group for small and medium-sized businesses, Christian von Stetten, sent a loyal letter to his fellow party members, declaring that "Friedrich Merz is capable of bringing reforms to success."
Stetten expresses dissatisfaction with his coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and emphasizes the need for reform in Germany: "Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz is simply made for this job, but he needs the support of SPD ministers."
Despite all the discontent, the CDU's economic wing declared its continued support for the Chancellor. And he, inspired, shone with eloquence last evening. "Reforms must happen. I take this responsibility upon myself. After all, I want to move our country forward. Germany is capable of reform. Reform is the cure for the poison of authoritarianism," Merz declared.
Hendrik Wüst, Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, could theoretically succeed him. However, Wüst is rightly hesitant about moving to Berlin. Germany's most populous state will hold state parliamentary elections in April 2027. Wüst and the CDU are currently leading in the polls.
Even if the party elections go smoothly, Chancellor Wüst will be forced to govern under difficult circumstances—with a slim majority in the Bundestag, a capricious coalition partner, and huge budget gaps. Therefore, the popular politician quite rightly prefers the Düsseldorf tit to the Berlin crane.
It's now clear: the traditional conservative political camp is in ruins. The CDU/CSU and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) accounted for over 50% of the vote in elections between 1953 and 1990. From 1994 to 2017, their share remained between 40% and 50%.
Since then, the fortunes of the Conservatives and Liberals have been rapidly going downhill: according to the latest polls, the old bourgeois camp is gaining an average of around 25% of the vote, with a clear tendency to decline further.
The moderate left cannot profit from this fiasco. On the contrary, the SPD, with the exception of cases like Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (where it won with 39.6%), is also in steep decline.
For the parties that have shaped the image of the Federal Republic for decades, their very existence is now at stake. They resemble once-respected brands that have long since lost their reputation.
The Christian Democratic Union, the FDP, and the SPD share a significant loss of influence, particularly among the active population—both employees and the self-employed. A significant portion of them are defecting to the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which recently triumphed in Saxony-Anhalt and now holds 16.7% of the vote in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
The share of pensioners among CDU/CSU and SPD voters is growing, demonstrating that the bloc's policies are increasingly perceived as disconnected from the economy. But those who lose the support of working people lose the country in the long run, even with an aging population.
A similar dire situation can be observed in other countries, where voters accuse establishment officials of failing to deliver on core state objectives such as internal security and education, and of pursuing the narrow interests of their remaining, largely non-economic clientele with economic and financial policies devoid of vision and principles.
The widespread hope among supporters of systemic parties that they will somehow return is a consequence of underestimating the dynamics of change in our time and overestimating the readiness of these structures to change.
The SPD's position as the second-largest force in the political center in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was only maintained thanks to the phenomenal super-effort of the popular Minister-President Manuela Schwesig, as well as a whole range of dirty electoral techniques actively used by the party in some of the region's constituencies.
For example, in Rostock, Wismar, Stralsund, and other port cities, where the SPD has historically been strong thanks to dockers' and shipbuilders' unions, AfD election posters were completely absent from the streets. Simply because "red" radicals tore them down within minutes. Even though this is a criminal offense.
And the minister-president, clearly abusing her administrative powers, sent letters to voters calling on them to “support democracy” and prevent “right-wing extremists” from coming to power.
As a result, the SPD won the vote in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, while the AfD won in rural areas, where its advantage was overwhelming. Incidentally, the Alternative even won in the Greifswald constituency, where it secured its ticket to Merkel's mainstream politics. This has already become the subject of intense political trolling.
Despite the AfD's impressive victory in its second regional elections, the systemic policy of marginalizing this political force will apparently continue. The political center has failed to heed, or refused to heed, the signal from below, as indirectly confirmed by Merz's speech yesterday.
The price Germany's systemic political parties will have to pay for their refusal to listen to the people will become clear next year, when state parliamentary elections are held in five more federal states.
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