What if the real issue in Sunday’s elections was ultimately neither Berlin nor Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, but Friedrich Merz himself? Barely more than a year after his arrival at the chancellery, the CDU boss is approaching these two elections with seriously diminished authority. The first warning shot came from the east. On September 6, the AfD far outstripped the CDU in Saxony-Anhalt. Since then, a question has been bothering German conservatives: is Merz still capable of stopping the progress of the nationalist party?
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the latest poll credits the SPD with 37%, the AfD with 36% and the CDU with only 6%. One point more than the threshold below which the party would disappear from the regional Parliament. In Berlin, the situation is less dramatic for the conservative party but hardly more reassuring. Die Linke, a radical left party, received 22% of voting intentions, compared to 20% for the CDU. As for the AfD? With 18%, he would double his score of 2023. These two regional elections have become a life-size test for Friedrich Merz. He had won the chancellery by promising a break with the Merkel years: more firmness on immigration, an economy freed from its constraints, a reformed social state and a Germany capable of assuming its military power.
But governing with the social democrats of the SPD forced him to compromise and ruined many of the hopes he had been able to raise. Above all, Merz did not succeed in his central challenge: drying up the AfD vote by regaining the initiative on immigration and the economy. At the federal level, the CDU-CSU is now clearly behind it in several opinion polls. The protest extends to his own camp.
Aware that his political future was at stake, Merz tried to regain the initiative. On Friday, his government announced a further reduction in taxes on gasoline and diesel. From October 1 and until the end of the year, the energy tax will decrease by 14 cents per liter, or around 17 cents at the pump taking into account VAT. Cost of the operation: 2.5 billion euros, shared between the federal state and the Länder. “He who depends on his car every day reaches his limits”now recognizes the Chancellor. In Mecklenburg, a rural area where the automobile remains essential, the surge in fuel prices has reached the heart of the countryside.
And Berlin wants to go further. The government announced the opening of discussions with oil companies in order to establish, no later than January 1, 2027, a temporary cap on fuel prices, inspired by the Luxembourg and Belgian models. At the same time, it is considering a mechanism allowing direct aid targeted according to income, while the tax allowance granted to workers making long journeys has already been increased. A real race against political time. Because a first reduction in taxes had already been applied in May and June.
The need to hand over the portfolio a few months later also reflects the government’s difficulty in transforming its reforms into perceptible improvement in daily life. The calendar, forty-eight hours before the elections, necessarily gives these announcements a particular resonance. Another sign of the chancellor’s excitement, Friedrich Merz gave up his planned trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly in order to stay in Berlin. In the corridors of power, some are already speculating about the name of his possible successor.
The verdict at the polls could open the battle for his succession
That of Hendrik Wüst, powerful minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia, is already circulating, as is that of Markus Söder, Bavarian boss of the CSU. Publicly, however, the latter continues to support the chancellor. Until when? Sunday evening, the verdict of the polls could open the battle for his succession. A new debacle might not bring it down immediately. Friedrich Merz continues to rule out resigning. But these votes could free those who, in his own camp, are only waiting for a pretext to hasten his departure.
