Merz clings to failed reforms as Germany's center collapses

By Klaus Berger · Reporting from Frankfurt · September 20, 2026

After historic state election defeats for the CDU, Friedrich Merz refuses to adjust course, mistaking rigid stubbornness for leadership while Germany's political center collapses.

The balance sheet of a vanishing center

The ledger of German governance now reads like a balance sheet written in red ink. On Sunday, September 20, 2026, state elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania delivered a historic rebuke to Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his center-right Christian Democratic Union. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, ARD and ZDF exit polls project the CDU crashed to 4.9 percent of the vote, falling below the threshold and vanishing from the state parliament entirely. It is the party's lowest state result since World War II, eclipsing the previous worst score in Bremen. DW.com and CBC News report that the Alternative for Germany surged to 38.2 percent, while the Social Democratic Party trailed. In Berlin, exit polls place the Left party at 24.5 percent, with the CDU trailing. Two weeks prior, on September 6, the CDU suffered another defeat in Saxony-Anhalt. Merz cancelled a planned trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York and correctly called the outcomes a "disaster." Yet the chancellor insists he will press on with structural reforms through backbone and patience. This is not leadership. It is a refusal to read the audit. The ordoliberal tradition demands that rules outlast politicians, but a balance sheet cannot survive if the ledger keeper ignores the liabilities piling up at the door.

The mechanics of the 2017 parallel

To understand why the German center is currently fracturing, one must look back to the 2017 German federal election. The shared mechanism is the erosion of the center-right's dominant position due to the rise of a populist right-wing alternative that disrupts traditional coalition arithmetic. The European migrant crisis created an opening for the AfD to challenge the established order by capitalizing on anti-establishment sentiment. Today's economic stagnation provides the fuel for the far right's resurgence. The AfD campaigned in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on a platform of mass deportations of undocumented migrants, ending military aid to Ukraine, and closer ties with Russia. As RFI English and CNN report, party co-leader Alice Weidel declared that the AfD has overtaken the CDU and that Merz is strongly damaged. Meanwhile, Verdi trade union chief Frank Werneke told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that Merz has screwed up, pointing out that voters reject abolishing the full pension after contributions. The eurozone crisis taught us that a leader can maintain rigid adherence to structural reforms and austerity despite severe political instability. It also proved that fiscal rigor without economic growth breeds political insolvency. Merz took office with the objective of turning around an economy that has barely grown in years, yet his administration's approval rating sank to 15 percent. When the center-right relies on unyielding discipline while ignoring worker fatigue and demographic decline, the electorate does not reform. It revolts.

The institutional firewall and the cost of denial

The strongest opposing case for the chancellor's persistence rests on the argument that institutional stability requires structural discipline above all else. In this view, Friedrich Merz is holding the line against populism by refusing to abandon his reform agenda, preserving Germany's fiscal framework under the constitutional debt brake amendments. This defense ignores the reality of the institutional balance sheet. As Philipp Amthor noted, individual party figures tried to soften the CDU's stance against the AfD, creating greater voter uncertainty. The AfD was originally founded by former disaffected CDU members opposed to eurozone bailouts. It now serves as the primary electoral beneficiary of the center-right's governance failures. When a party classified by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a confirmed right-wing extremist endeavor captures a state election, the firewall is no longer a wall. It is a tripwire. Calls for Merz's replacement have echoed within the CDU over the weeks preceding the vote. While no top-level allies have publicly demanded his departure, party discipline cannot substitute for a functioning electoral base. The 2023 Turkish general election demonstrated how an incumbent leader can double down on a specific policy trajectory despite significant internal pressure and economic instability. Turkey's institutional framework lacks the federal and regional fragmentation of the Grundgesetz. Merz is betting that federal power can insulate him from state-level wipeouts. A chancellor who cannot win a state assembly cannot govern a nation.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz will not survive the slow-motion collapse of his party's eastern base if he continues to mistake stubbornness for strength. His refusal to adjust course guarantees that the center will keep giving way until nothing is left to reform.

Merz clings to failed reforms as Germany's center collapses

The balance sheet of a vanishing center

The mechanics of the 2017 parallel

The institutional firewall and the cost of denial

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