Ruling coalition to push on with reforms: Merz

Embattled German Chancellor Friedrich Merz yesterday vowed to keep his ruling coalition together for the sake of the country’s “democratic future” after crushing defeats in two regional elections fueled speculation about how long he would stay in his post.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) scored another win on Sunday, in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) sank to 4.9 percent, below the threshold to stay in parliament and its worst result since the party was formed in 1945.

The AfD’s top state candidate, Leif-Erik Holm, predicted that “the chancellor certainly won’t make it to the end of the year. I think the twilight of the chancellor’s era has begun.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz holds a news conference in Berlin yesterday.

Photo: Bloomberg

However, Merz, 70, made clear he has no intention of quitting as leader of Europe’s biggest economy, at the helm of a coalition with the center-left SPD.

“We are determined to live up to the historic responsibilities our country is facing,” Merz said. “It is about nothing less, and nothing more, than the democratic future of our country.”

Merz has faced growing pressure after the latest bruising results, which also saw the far-left Die Linke beat his center-right party in the city state of Berlin, where the AfD also made strong gains.

The setbacks came with speculation already at fever pitch about Merz’s future after the AfD scored its biggest electoral triumph yet in a vote in Saxony-Anhalt state on Sept. 6.

Merz pushed back at criticism that his own low popularity ratings were behind the election defeats.

“The reasons for these election results go far beyond my own person,” he said. “We are witnessing a profound transformation of the political party system in Germany as well as in many other countries around the world.”

Fighting speculation that his CDU/CSU bloc might try to oust him, Merz took the unusual step on Sunday of addressing the nation on TV just minutes after the first exit polls were announced.

Merz admitted that his CDU had suffered a “disaster,” but vowed to stay the course, push on with reforms and govern with “backbone, steadfastness and patience.”

The chancellor has also cleared his calendar for the following days and skipped a trip to New York for the UN General Assembly to deal with potential aftershocks from the votes.

Sunday’s election losses also looked set to cause more turbulence between the CDU and junior coalition partners the SPD.

While SPD leaders pledged to remain in the coalition, they hinted that they wanted to reopen talks on social and economic reforms, recently agreed on after months of often rancorous negotiations with the CDU.

“We stand by this coalition,” said German Minister of Finance Lars Klingbeil, who is the SPD’s co-leader.

However, he added that “things can’t go on” as they had been.

“We need open and honest debates, including within the government, about the course of reforms,” he added.

Merz has been fighting off rumors he may be ousted for weeks.

Names of hopefuls for the top job that have been floated include Hendrik Wuest, state premier of populous North Rhine-Westphalia, and Markus Soeder, the Bavarian state premier and head of the CSU, the regional sister party of the CDU.

However, no contender has made an open move for the job — perhaps fearing the act of disloyalty could backfire, or intimidated by the tough task of trying to revive the conservatives’ fortunes during one of their worst-ever crises.