Polling is underway on Sunday across two German state elections where projected gains for the far-right AfD threaten to weaken Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s authority and hamper his ability to deliver economic reforms across Europe’s largest economy.
The regional contests are taking place in Berlin, the national capital, and in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a mostly rural territory in the former communist east that remains economically less affluent.
The voting follows just two weeks after the anti-migration, Russia-friendly Alternative for Germany, or AfD, fell barely short of an overall majority in the small eastern territory of Saxony-Anhalt, giving the movement its strongest opportunity to date to form a far-right regional government for the first time since World War II.
Merz’s leadership was hit hard by his party’s heavy defeat in that 6 September election.
The result stunned a population that had assumed thorough education and robust legal protections enacted after the Nazi era had provided lasting immunity to nationalism and racial ideology.
Further substantial gains for the AfD are expected on Sunday. However, the party lacks any practical path to power in Berlin and faces far tougher resistance from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s centre-left governor than it encountered from Merz’s party in Saxony-Anhalt.
Prospects for Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union are bleaker. It could lose the mayor’s office in Berlin.
If things go very badly, it could fail for the first time to win seats in a state legislature anywhere by falling below 5 per cent of the vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where it was already weak.
Merz, 70, became Germany’s leader 16 months ago with promises to turn around an economy that has barely grown in years, but has failed to lift a sullen national mood and has himself become deeply unpopular.
The strong showing of AfD in the Saxony-Anhalt election has further weakened the chancellor's standing on the national level as well, and in the past two weeks there have been calls even from within his own party to replace him as chancellor.
No top-level allies have called publicly for his departure, and many have warned against “personnel debates.”
Apparently anticipating a tough postelection period, Merz abandoned a planned trip to New York next week to attend the U.N. General Assembly. Despite the strong headwinds, he has repeatedly said that he’s determined to stay on and finish his term as chancellor.
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