BERLIN — An ARD public-broadcast survey published Thursday found only one in 10 Germans satisfied or very satisfied with Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s performance — the lowest reading for any chancellor since the poll began in 1997 — after a string of Christian Democratic Union state election setbacks, Al Jazeera reported.
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on September 20, the CDU failed to clear the 5 percent threshold and exited the state parliament for the first time in the Federal Republic’s history, while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) finished first with more than a third of the vote. In Berlin, The Left led with 25.7 percent and the CDU placed second. Two weeks earlier in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD won more than 40 percent against about 17 percent for the CDU.
Merz called the Mecklenburg result “a disaster” but vowed to stay as party chairman and chancellor. Under Germany’s Basic Law, the Bundestag can replace a chancellor only by electing a successor with an absolute majority, constraining any internal revolt. Political scientist Wolfgang Schroeder of the University of Kassel told Al Jazeera the CDU is caught in a strategic dilemma between the AfD on the right and The Left in urban contests.
Sources: Al Jazeera
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