German State Votes in Berlin and East Test Merz as AfD Surges

German voters head to the polls on Sunday in two state elections that are expected to intensify pressure on Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose position has been unsettled since the far right's strong showing in a regional vote earlier this month.

The ballots in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a largely rural state in the former communist east, and in the capital Berlin follow the September 6 election in Saxony-Anhalt, where the Alternative for Germany (AfD) came close to winning an outright majority.

Although regional elections rarely attract much attention beyond Germany, the AfD's performance in Saxony-Anhalt has reverberated across Europe. The party, which campaigns for tough deportation measures, the restoration of energy ties with Russia and withdrawal from the euro, has grown in just over a decade from a fringe eurosceptic group into the country's most popular party.

Polls suggest the AfD is unlikely to repeat its Saxony-Anhalt result in either of Sunday's contests. Still, the votes are expected to underline its recent advances and renew debate over the "firewall" strategy, under which other major parties refuse to form coalitions with it.

For Merz, whose approval ratings have fallen as low as 14 percent in recent surveys, the outcome adds to a series of setbacks that have prompted doubts within his own Christian Democratic Union (CDU) about his leadership. Senior party figures have so far closed ranks behind him, mindful that replacing the chancellor would be constitutionally difficult and that any successor would inherit the same economic challenges.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the CDU appears headed for its weakest result yet. A poll by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen on Friday put the party at 6 percent, leaving it at risk of missing the threshold needed to enter the state parliament. The same survey showed the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) edging ahead of the AfD for the first time in months, with 37 percent to the AfD's 36 percent. The far-left Left Party stood at 9 percent and the Greens at 5 percent, exactly the threshold for parliamentary representation. Both would be potential coalition partners for popular state premier Manuela Schwesig, around whom the SPD has built its campaign.

In Berlin, the Wahlen poll showed the Left Party overtaking the CDU, threatening the conservatives' hold on the mayor's office in a campaign dominated by housing affordability. The Left Party was at 22 percent, the CDU at 20 percent, the Greens at 15 percent and the SPD at 12 percent. The AfD sat in third place at 18 percent, while the far-left BSW, the only party that has indicated it might work with the AfD, was just below the parliamentary threshold at 4 percent.

Discontent with the government has hung over both campaigns, with voters focused on issues including soaring energy and housing costs. Rising fuel prices, felt acutely in a state where many depend on cars, have increased pressure on Merz to agree relief measures with his Social Democrat coalition partners. On Friday, he presented a package that included tax cuts on gas and diesel.