Dear Reader,
The polling suggested that a major upset was on the cards. Nonetheless, it would have taken a fearless gambler to actually bet on it.
And then it happened: in the state election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Sunday, the CDU fell below the 5 percent cut-off to make it into the state parliament.
Friedrich Merz called the result a “disaster”. That’s putting it mildly. For a party that, until not so long ago, could claim to be Germany’s only Volkspartei, it was an abject humiliation. A Volkspartei is a party whose popularity cuts across class and region — not making it into a state parliament puts the CDU into the same bracket as the Tierschutzpartei (Animal Protection Party) and dozens of other groups on the tail end of Germany’s ballot paper.
In the entire 77-year history of the modern German republic, the CDU has never even come close to such a humiliation. You have to go back to the year 1951 – when the CDU won 9 percent of the vote in the city state of Bremen – to find anything remotely comparable.
As if that weren’t enough, in Berlin’s state election the CDU dropped 10 percent of its vote on Sunday, leaving the hard-left Die Linke to claim victory on a pledge to expropriate private housing.
The results came at the end of a month that began with the AfD almost winning an absolute majority in the state election in Saxony-Anhalt. The sense of existential dread inside the CDU is palpable.
So, where do things go from here? Five scenarios.
Merz throws the SPD out of his coalition
What is important to note about Sunday’s result in Mecklenburg is not just how badly the CDU lost, but how the SPD almost won.
State leader Manuela Schwesig (SPD) fought a campaign that was officially against the AfD (she called herself die Frau gegen Blau) but was, in reality, against Merz. She loudly rejected a central plank of Merz’ reform plan — the abolition of the right to a full pension after 45 years of work — while also demanding that the federal government cut fuel taxes. Meanwhile, her rants against Merz at closed-door SPD executive committee meetings somehow leaked to the press.