There are moments in politics when it becomes clear that something is slipping. Or perhaps that someone is deliberately making it slip. In Berlin, the distinction has become increasingly difficult to make.
“Vertrauensfrage”, “Neuwahlen” and “Kanzlersturz” — confidence vote, new elections and the removal of a chancellor — have become familiar expressions in Germany’s political capital. What is increasingly unusual is a conversation in which Friedrich Merz is defended, or in which there is confidence that his government can still succeed.
Since the elections in Saxony-Anhalt, that defence has almost disappeared.
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is watching, seemingly stunned, as the authority of its own chancellor deteriorates. A cabinet reshuffle intended to provide a fresh start instead resembled a pile-up. An economy minister spared in the reshuffle subsequently positioned herself openly against the government’s course. A chancellor shaken by his party’s disastrous result in Saxony-Anhalt then undermined the moment by blaming a deputy parliamentary group leader for having turned against the state’s leading candidate.
The politician publicly criticised by Merz announced his own candidacy for CDU state leadership in Saxony-Anhalt only hours later.
Then came another extraordinary confrontation: a deputy secretary-general who could apparently be removed from office only after Merz expended considerable political effort. Most recently, the parliamentary group has demanded the dismissal of Labour Minister Bärbel Bas and threatened not to approve the budget.
What does all this say about the chancellor’s authority?
According to the source material reported by Die ZEIT, CDU politicians are increasingly answering that question with silence, sighs and, eventually, the same conclusion: “There is no authority left.” “He cannot do it.” And: “He probably will not learn it anymore.”
These are not merely journalists or political commentators making such judgements. They are CDU politicians, including figures with influence over Merz’s political fate.
For weeks, confidential conversations have centred on increasingly concrete scenarios. Who could replace Merz? How could it happen? And when? Should the party wait until after the elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin, or until next year’s state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia?
Until recently, these were conversations rather than plans. The assumption was that there was time to decide whether and when speculation should become reality.
That calculation is now changing.
The authority of the chancellor, according to the account in Die ZEIT, is deteriorating faster than the CDU can organise an alternative. Merz could therefore fall before his party has established a successor capable of stabilising it. Those who once appeared to be plotting against him risk becoming driven by the speed of the collapse itself.
The CDU had intended to impose calm between the elections in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin. Concentrate on campaigning. Do not lose your nerve. Simulate normality, at least a little.
But normality has become difficult to maintain.
Two numbers have helped redefine the political reality: 43.8 and 85. The first is the share won by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt. The second is the proportion of Germans dissatisfied with the chancellor.
Together, the figures have encouraged a growing number within the CDU to conclude not merely that Merz is failing to help the party, but that he may himself be worsening its predicament. The question increasingly being asked is blunt: can a government continue to govern against a majority of the population?
The response from the CDU’s state premiers after the Saxony-Anhalt result was striking. All spoke publicly about the significance of the moment. None offered words of support for Merz. His name was not even mentioned.
Merz invited the state premiers to the Konrad Adenauer House on the Sunday evening. Only Daniel Günther attended. The following morning, Merz met the others as well. It was a late attempt to bring some of the Union’s most powerful figures into his orbit.
Günther is said to have advised him to involve the state premiers more closely. Karin Prien also reportedly urged him to find a different way of addressing them — more empathetic, more emotional and less condescending.
Merz attempted precisely that at his subsequent press conference. But, according to the perception of important CDU figures, he immediately undermined the effort by attacking the deputy parliamentary group leader. Two days later, speaking in the Bundestag, he told the AfD: “You have not achieved your electoral goal.”
Given that almost 44% had voted for the far-right party, the remark reportedly left members of his parliamentary group bewildered.
The state premiers are not a homogeneous group. Some represent a more right-wing CDU, others a more liberal one. But two points of agreement are increasingly audible within the party: Merz can no longer continue, and if events move rapidly, the CDU needs both a candidate and a procedure.
The name most frequently mentioned is Hendrik Wüst, the minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Wüst remains politically strong in his state, where his regional organisation has resisted the federal trend. He leads a successful and comparatively popular coalition government with the Greens. He and his team are regarded as professionals — people who understand the mechanics of government.
That distinction goes directly to the criticism increasingly directed at Merz. Few accuse the chancellor of thinking or wanting the wrong things. The accusation is that he cannot execute them.
“You run a party here, not a company,” the Bremen CDU leader recently told Merz at the federal executive committee. A powerful state politician subsequently challenged even that criticism: Merz, he argued, could not run a company that way either. “You simply cannot lead like that.” Another person familiar with the discussions over removing the chancellor put it even more starkly: “You simply cannot govern a country like Merz.”
Most CDU figures believe Wüst could govern a country. The SPD would presumably vote for him, while several senior Social Democrats reportedly acknowledge that they would now support almost anyone if it prevented new elections. Even the Greens could potentially work with him. A Wüst chancellorship could bring a CDU-Green project back within reach and revive the political centre.
Yet the greatest objections to Wüst come from within his own party.
North Rhine-Westphalia is due to hold state elections in seven months. Wüst had intended to win those elections first and perhaps use a strengthened position to consider his next move. He is also said to be a hesitant politician who prefers to be asked before acting.
There are practical problems as well. Taking over the federal government after roughly a year and a half would mean assuming the chancellorship almost halfway through the legislative term. He would also have to work with a cabinet largely appointed and constructed by Merz.
The CDU still remembers the experience of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who became party leader in December 2018 after a successful career as minister-president of Saarland, only to struggle on the larger federal political stage and give up three years later.
The CDU/CSU parliamentary group would also not be a guaranteed source of support. It is more conservative than the party itself, and after the departure of Jens Spahn it is not necessarily a tightly controlled political force. Conservatives can therefore ask whether the appropriate response to the rise of the AfD is really a chancellor positioned closer to the political centre-left.
That has opened space for another name: Boris Rhein, minister-president of Hesse.
Rhein has increasingly presented himself as a sharp-edged conservative, opposing what he describes as wokeness and the left. After the Saxony-Anhalt election, he also criticised the CDU’s “firewall” against the AfD, calling the term “not Christian Democratic”. That has prompted concern — and, for a small number, hope — that Rhein might advocate a change in the CDU’s position towards the AfD.
But Rhein remains largely unknown nationally. There are also doubts within the party about his political and administrative skills.
The fact that two names are now being discussed so intensely, with serious arguments being weighed for and against each, is itself evidence of the gravity of Merz’s predicament.
Yet the CDU remains divided. Boris Rhein and Gordon Schnieder, the government leader in Rhineland-Palatinate, represent a more traditional conservative south, although both are relatively new in office. Wüst has a good relationship with Daniel Günther, and both govern with the Greens, making them somewhat suspect to conservatives.
They also share a desire to prevent Markus Söder. Söder, in turn, is said to want to prevent Wüst. If the younger politician became chancellor, Söder’s own opportunity for federal power could effectively close.
That may explain why Söder has recently made comparatively stabilising remarks about Merz. Asked on the programme Maischberger whether Merz was the right chancellor, the Bavarian minister-president replied: “I believe that he is chancellor.”
Meanwhile, increasingly extraordinary ideas are circulating around the government itself. Could Merz save himself by dismissing Labour Minister Bärbel Bas? The right wing of the CDU would welcome it. The SPD might withdraw its ministers. The coalition would collapse, leaving Merz to govern with a minority administration and seek parliamentary support for reforms — potentially even from the AfD.
It is an extraordinary scenario. Several people close to the chancellor have confirmed to Die ZEIT that it is at least being considered.
One CDU strategist familiar with the plans from the Chancellery offered a devastating assessment: “These people have shown that they cannot even run a normal government. And now they seriously want to pull off the biggest stunt in history?”
The consequences could be far-reaching. CDU-SPD governments in the German states could be endangered. The AfD could move closer to power.
“It is madness,” the CDU strategist said.
And that is the paradox now confronting Germany’s governing party. Until recently, the argument protecting Merz was that removing a sitting chancellor amid such political instability would be reckless and irresponsible.
The balance of the argument is changing.
As further elections approach, with the CDU potentially falling below 25% in Lower Saxony, below 8% in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and behind the Left in Berlin, while national polling puts the party at 20%, a question that once seemed unthinkable is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid.
The question is no longer simply whether removing Friedrich Merz would be madness. For some inside the CDU, the question is whether refusing to remove him might be the greater risk.
