Bloomberg: Merz vows to stay on after record German election defeat

Merz said he would stay put as German chancellor even after the CDU suffered its worst-ever result in a state election
Photo: Bloomberg

Friedrich Merz said he would remain as German chancellor after his Christian Democratic Union party posted it worst-ever result in a state election, failing to gain enough votes to win a single seat, Bloomberg reports.

The Christian Democratic Union won 4.9% of the vote in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Sunday, according to preliminary results from the state election authority, just missing a 5% threshold required to enter parliament. The far-right Alternative for Germany won the contest with 38.2%, while the long-dominant Social Democrats came second with 35.5%.

In an election in Berlin, the governing CDU was defeated by the anti-capitalist Left party.

“We can’t sugarcoat it, it was a disaster,” Merz told reporters in Berlin in a statement earlier directly after exit polls were released, breaking with a past practice for chancellors to speak the day after an election. He gathered senior CDU officials to party headquarters, where he sought to gauge their support for his leadership.

Germany’s political establishment was shaken when the CDU suffered a stunning defeat to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany two weeks ago in Saxony-Anhalt, another eastern state that could lead the first far-right government in the country since World War II.

The fallout has dealt a blow to Merz’s chancellorship, prompting calls among rank-and-file members to push Merz — who polls show is the least popular postwar German chancellor — out after only 16 months in office.

Lars Klingbeil, the SPD co-leader and vice chancellor, said the government needs to take stock and ask why voters voiced such uncertainty about policymaking in Berlin, where Merz’s coalition has struggled to sell its plan to overhaul the pension system and take on more debt to boost spending on defense and infrastructure.

“I take this very seriously,” Klingbeil told ARD. “I also believe that we need to look at results like these with humility and ask ourselves: What can we do differently? What can we do better?”

The election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was the latest demonstration of the AfD’s appeal, with the far right more than doubling its support and winning the state for the first time with calls to deport migrants and oppose military support for Ukraine and its attacks on the political establishment.

In Berlin, Merz’s party, which has governed the German capital since 2023, trailed the Left party. The Left, which advocates the expropriation of portfolios of large realestate companies, won 25.7% support, while the CDU secured 18.8%, an ARD projection showed.

Polls had shown the CDU, which took power in the German capital in 2023 for the first time in more than two decades, trailing the Left, which has campaigned on an affordability platform. Its lead candidate, Elif Eralp, the daughter of political refugees, would become the first mayor of Turkish descent.

But it was unclear which party would be able to form a government, with a potential coalition including the Greens and SPD.

“Starting today, we will change Berlin together,” Eralp told supporters as initial results were released. She said the polls showed that there was “hope for a better, more affordable Berlin.”

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