German opposition leader Friedrich Merz should enjoy high approval ratings and position himself as Germany’s chancellor-designate. In theory, at least.
Instead, he watched in disbelief as voters disaffected by Olaf Scholz’s government increasingly supported the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), now the second most popular party in the country political parties.
Merz’s Christian Democratic Union has plummeted in the opinion polls, while the AfD – driven by inflation, recession, anxiety about the war in Ukraine and the government’s chaotic climate policies – is experiencing a surge in support.
“People feel very insecure, but unfortunately the CDU – Germany’s largest democratic opposition party – is working hard to combat this insecurity,” said Mark Vanderwitz, an MP in Merz’s party. “Too many voters switched to the AfD.”
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The result could be particularly embarrassing for Merz, who was elected CDU leader last year on a promise to win back conservative voters who are now flirting with the AfD.
“Merz said he would halve the AfD’s vote share, and he doubled it,” said Klaus-Peter Schöppner of pollster Mentefactum. “Meanwhile, the CDU appears to be stuck at 30% and can’t get out of it.”
Merz’s woes have been exacerbated by internal rivalry with Hendrik Wüst, chancellor of the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state. German media are increasingly looking at Wüst as a potential candidate for chancellorship of the CDU in elections scheduled for late 2025 – a role Merz has long wanted him to fill.
Wüst is everywhere, with a column in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which he invites friendly Berlin MPs to share on social media, speeches at regional CDU conferences and interviews with local newspapers .
That clearly unnerved Merz, who launched an unprecedented attack on his opponent last Sunday. In an interview with public broadcaster ZDF, he said dissatisfaction with the Worcester government in NRW was “almost as strong as dissatisfaction with the federal government”.
“If we had regional elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, the AfD would be almost as strong (there) as the whole country,” he said.
Seasoned observers were shocked. German politicians rarely criticize comrades in the party in public, especially those who run local governments in a large state like NRW.
“A lot of people in my state find it really insulting, especially since Wüst polls much better than Merz,” said a CDU lawmaker from the region. “He clearly sees Wüst as a real competitor.”
It has been a stressful time for Merz, who has long had his eye on Germany’s top job.
He was seen as one of the CDU’s rising stars in the early 2000s, having given up politics after being sidelined by arch-rival Angela Merkel. He ended up serving as chairman of BlackRock Germany for four years, becoming a millionaire in the process. But the 67-year-old has been eager to return to national politics.
However, it is a difficult path. Merz was only elected on his third attempt to become CDU leader in January 2022. Many in the party see him as a polarizing figure, and they fear he could alienate mobile voters.
Worcester, 20 years his junior, was considered milder. The lawyer by training catapulted to the front lines of CDU politics, seen by many as a model for state government in Berlin, after winning NRW elections last May and forming an unprecedented coalition with the Greens.
Since that victory, Wuster’s status in the country has gradually improved. He was second only to Germany’s popular defense minister, Boris Pistorius, in a recent popularity ranking by pollster Insa. Merz limped to eighth.
At the same time, Wuster began to make his own political stand, portraying himself as Merkel’s natural heir. In an article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he said the CDU must remain “a stable pillar of the centrist”.
“Those who get low grades and follow the populists are cutting their own roots and throwing themselves into chaos,” he wrote.
This was widely interpreted as a jab at Merz, who occasionally dabbles in the kind of rhetoric more often heard at AfD rallies. Last year he accused Ukrainian refugees of “welfare tourism”. Earlier this year, he described the immigrant’s son as a “little pasha”.
Claudia Pechstein, a policewoman and former German speed skating champion, made a controversial speech at a CDU event over the weekend that only fueled criticism of Merz’s leadership suspicion.
Pechstein, who was widely criticized for wearing a police uniform at the event, blasted asylum seekers, gender-neutral language and non-traditional families. Merz called her speech “fantastic.”
Liberals in his party were appalled. “We’re not even trying to reconnect with young people, city dwellers, women,” said a CDU lawmaker. “We stick with 70-year-olds living in rural areas who go to church every Sunday. That’s not a growth strategy.”
Worcester supporters say he will avoid such false steps. “He would never let someone like Pechstein take to the stage,” said a CDU lawmaker.
Pechstein’s speech at the convention was one of several events Merz organized to pave the way for the new party program. The idea is to get the opinions of party members before turning to the question of who should run for prime minister in 2025. “We need a little strategic patience,” Merz told ZDF.
But Wüst threw a spanner at his rival’s work. Asked last week by the Rheinische Post if he wanted to run as the CDU’s candidate in 2025, he said his “responsibility is currently in North Rhine-Westphalia”. The word “present” seems to be designed to get people talking about his future ambitions.
“Merz always said he needed two to three years to restore the CDU’s fortunes,” says Mentefactum’s Schöppner. “But people don’t seem ready to give him that. There’s already talk about who should be their candidate for prime minister – although with an election still 2.5 years away, it’s clearly not the right time.”
Wanderwitz sees the conflict between Merz and Wüst as a symptom of their party’s identity crisis. “What do we want to be? Constructive opposition? A mainstream centrist party in the tradition of Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel? Or do we want to create noise and disruption?
“We haven’t really solved the puzzle, and until we do, it’s a real problem for us.”