Beware the Ides of Merz. Hours after the centre-right Christian Democratic Union won Germany’s federal election, its leader, Friedrich Merz, awoke on Monday with two headaches. If and when he clears a final obstacle course to power in Berlin, an unprecedented to-do list awaits him in the chancellery.
It took three attempts for Merz, a 69-year-old liberal conservative, to secure the CDU leadership, but just one election bid to win Europe’s most powerful political job.
Behind the smiles and bouquets at CDU headquarters on Monday morning, however, the party’s second-worst result in history left many with a bitter aftertaste – and concern over the uncertain outlook.
Just a third of Germans think Merz will be a good chancellor, according to a public television poll on Sunday evening, while just 29 per cent trust him. Adding insult to injury, only one in four Germans say they like the man – worse than even the remarkably unpopular outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
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On Monday many were already grumbling that it was more the unpopularity of the bickering Scholz coalition – disliked by 82 per cent of the electorate – that brought Merz to power than his politics, competence or record.
The trained lawyer entered politics 36 years ago and took a decade out for lucrative corporate work but, remarkably for a would-be chancellor, he has never served in a government.
Observers expect him to bring to Germany’s top job an unpredictable and uncompromising tactical streak. That much was on display in his last act as opposition leader: ramming through the Bundestag a symbolic migration motion in response to another fatal attack involving a failed asylum seeker.
The non-binding Merz motion’s proposals – to close borders and suspend asylum – passed the Bundestag only with far-right support. For that alliance, the Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) denounced Merz for “opening the gate to hell”.
Merz’s uncompromising election tactics ramped up tension still further. On Friday he used his final campaign speech to make an impulsive promise to end Germany’s rule by “leftist cranks”.
On Monday, wondering about a future coalition, Merz had to phone those leftist SPD cranks. Despite its worst result, the SPD is his only viable path to power.
After a nine-month series of violent attacks, with 10 fatalities and counting, leading CDU figures lined up on Monday to repeat a mantra: voters expect change.
But the SPD’s more pragmatic line on migration and asylum – the decisive election issue – puts it at odds with the CDU and, even more, its Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union.
Complicating matters still further: a poll on Sunday revealed that every second voter blames the CDU/CSU – far more than the SPD – for the high numbers of refugees and asylum seekers, a nod to decisions made a decade ago by Angela Merkel, then CDU chancellor.
On other leading campaign issues – growth, defence, foreign policy – German voters view the CDU as the most competent party in parliament, creating similar expectations for it to revive Germany’s economy and be constructive in Europe.
Failure to deliver could bode ill for the next coalition parties, particularly given the level of voter flux revealed by post-election analysis.
The CDU gained four points’ support, but still lost a million voters to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) – voters who, analysts say, will be hard to claw back.
Like an industrial vacuum cleaner, the AfD sucked up support right across Germany’s political spectrum. Besides ex-CDU supporters, the AfD activated by far the largest number of non-voters − 1.8 million − in the previous federal election in 2021.
As a coalition talks timetable emerges – talks from March 6th, first Bundestag sitting on March 24/25 – the SPD is shaking up leadership structures after the departure of Scholz.
As chancellor but never party leader, Scholz carried a political influence that now passes to others. Beyond coalition talks and internal leadership questions, the SPD needs emergency surgery to staunch the haemorrhage of 3.6 million lost voters on Sunday.
Nearly one in three SPD voters switched allegiance to the CDU and another third to the two leftist parties. A fifth – 720,000 votes – abandoned the party for the AfD.
Unlike all other parties the AfD, by doubling its support on Sunday, lost few voters: just 60,000 to the far left-conservative BSW alliance, which failed to enter parliament.
Its gains covered all voter groups: first-time voters, middle class and – most strikingly – Germany’s eastern regions, with close to 40 per cent support.
At European Union level, Merz has vowed Berlin will be a more reliable partner than in the recent past and that his ministries will speak with one voice in Brussels. He promises better co-ordination of pre-summit positions with Paris and Warsaw. But, though not yet in power, he has already signalled more caution on Ukraine. On the campaign trail, he consistently fudged questions on whether as chancellor he would favour the cruise missile deliveries to Kyiv he demanded as opposition leader.
The desire for quick coalition talks, senior CDU sources indicated on Monday, reflects the urgent need for a coherent German – and European – response to the Trump geopolitical shifts, particularly on Ukraine.
For Stefan Meister, Russia and eastern European analyst with the German Council on Foreign Relations, this will prove a “painful process” for the traditionally westward-looking party of Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl.
“Just as Russia’s attack on Ukraine sparked an identity crisis for the SPD, the Trump administration’s shift in Ukraine will spark an identity crisis in the CDU,” Meister said. “It is more likely to try to maintain ties to the US and seek compromise.”
