Berlin, Sep 20 (EFE). – German Chancellor and Christian Democratic Union Chairman Friedrich Merz admitted on Sunday that the election results in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (northeast), where his party reportedly received only around 5% of the vote, are a “disaster,” though he discarded stepping down.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won the state elections, securing between 37% and 38% of the vote.
“We can’t sugarcoat the results in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. It’s a disaster,” he said at the CDU headquarters in Berlin after the first exit polls were released, showing also the party’s worst-ever result in a regional election.
Additionally, the CDU was defeated in Berlin, despite winning the 2023 repeat election and governing in coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
The Left Party won between 24% and 25.8% of the vote, compared with 20% for the CDU, according to initial projections by German public television stations.
“In our capital, here in Berlin, Stefan Evers took over as the lead candidate in a very difficult situation and jumped straight into the election campaign. With full dedication and great commitment, he led the CDU to a respectable result,” Merz said.
He did not mention that, since reunification, the CDU and SPD had always alternated as the parties with the most votes.
The Chancellor maintained that “the CDU fought hard, but in the end, it was crushed in the escalating confrontation between the SPD and the AfD.”
AfD defeated the SPD in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and came in third in Berlin, according to the polls.
Merz admitted that his own low popularity, only 10%, and that of the coalition government formed by conservatives and Social Democrats, did not help in either campaign, noting that the parties had to campaign “under very difficult conditions, partly because there was no tailwind coming from Berlin.”
The chancellor acknowledged that Germany’s economic and political problems made difficult and potentially unpopular reforms more urgent, not less, and pledged to press ahead with «backbone, steadfastness and patience.» EFE
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