If you thought it couldn’t get any worse for the CDU in Germany following the party’s horrible showing in the September 6 Saxony-Anhalt state election, think again.
On Sunday, exit polls showed the CDU with just 5.5% of the vote in another local election, raising the specter of expulsion from state parliament in Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania.
This appeared to be another instance of the CDU underperforming already low expectations. Pollsters expected the CDU to win 6%. Had the party not met the 5% threshold for securing seats, it’d be the first time since World War II that the CDU found itself sidelined entirely.
The prospect of being excluded from participation in state government constituted a veritable disaster for the party. And don’t take my word for it, just ask Friedrich Merz, who’s well on his way to being remembered as the least successful chancellor in the history of the federal republic.
“It was a disaster,” Merz said Sunday, addressing reporters in Berlin. “We can’t sugarcoat it.” (No, “we” can’t. And even if “we” wanted to, we’d be lampooned mercilessly.)
For the past three or so decades, Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania was governed by the Social Democrats in various coalitions. The SPD managed 35.5% of the vote on Sunday, good for second place. You’ll never guess who came in first: The AfD, with around 37%.
Although double the party’s share from the last election in the state, that’s nowhere near the absolute majority threshold, thank God. Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania, unlike Saxony-Anhalt, isn’t going to fall entirely to the far-Reich-right.
But the AfD’s leadership will doubtlessly call this yet another rebuke of the establishment and, more importantly, a testament to the notion that the “Brandmauer” — Germany’s version of France’s “cordon sanitaire” — is increasingly incompatible with the will of voters.
That, in turn, raises an all-too-familiar question in the post-2015 world: What do you do when the electorate seems determined to vote away democracy by putting unapologetically illiberal people in power? There’s no good answer to that question. It’s a riddle. A conundrum. A brain teaser. And an existential concern.
Needless to say, Sunday’s result makes Merz’s position even more untenable than it was already. He’s the least-popular German chancellor since… well, since ever maybe. Nationally, his approval rating was 14% as of last month, and it’s perilously close to the single-digits in Germany’s eastern states.
It’s hard to say how unpopular mustache man was when he and Eva settled in for that long nap on April 30, 1945, in the Führerbunker, but I gotta think it’s at least possible that 14% of Germans still supported “the cause.”
It’s likely Merz will be pushed aside by the CDU. And the sooner the better. I don’t personally think he’s a “bad” leader, but his unpopularity’s translating directly into gains for the far-right, and that’s no good.
Some caveats are in order. The same sentiments that explain AfD’s outperformance in Saxony-Anhalt are pervasive in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. It’s thus not surprising that AfD put in a strong showing there. Further, the party appears to have underperformed in Berlin on Sunday. That’s no consolation for Merz, though. CDU was bested there by Die Linke, which means Merz now has something in common with Hitler: He was beaten in the capital by communists.
Merz pretended Sunday that he’ll soldier on. “I want to move our country forward,” he said, pledging to forge ahead with his reform agenda. “I’d even go so far as to say these reforms are the antidote to the authoritarian poison that’s penetrating ever deeper into our society.”
“How combustible the situation has become was illustrated by Merz himself, who gave a short speech once the ballots closed and the first exit polls were out,” ING’s Carsten Brzeski remarked. “That is unprecedented: Comments from national government figures on state election results normally come later in the evening, if at all.”
For those of you who didn’t read “The Craft,” now’s a good time.
