Merz Calls CDU's Mecklenburg Defeat a 'Disaster', Vows to Push On With Reforms

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said he will remain in office and press ahead with his government's reform programme, after his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered its worst result in any German state since World War II.

Exit polls indicated the centre-right party took just 5% of the vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in Sunday's state election. Merz did not soften the outcome, telling an audience that the result could not be dressed up. "It's a disaster," he said, adding that the CDU had fought hard but was ultimately squeezed in an intensifying contest between the Social Democrats and the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Rather than signalling a change of course, the chancellor argued that Germany's economic and political difficulties made difficult and potentially unpopular decisions more urgent. He said the reforms would bring burdens and fresh uncertainty for many people, and that some effects would only become clear over time, but insisted the decisions could not be postponed. "The reforms must go ahead," he said.

Merz framed the programme as a response to what he described as declining trust in the country's institutions, which he said was being actively undermined by radical parties on both the left and the right. He called for a fundamental debate in Germany and across Europe about freedom, everyday security, peace, and the country's own strengths and weaknesses, set against what he called very concrete threats. The reforms, he said, were the antidote to the growing appeal of authoritarianism, and carrying them through would require "backbone, steadfastness and patience" — qualities he promised to show both as CDU chairman and as chancellor.

The AfD made significant gains in both of Sunday's state elections. The party is also riding momentum from Saxony-Anhalt two weeks ago, where it finished just short of a majority and now has its best chance yet of forming Germany's first far-right regional government since World War II.

Merz's authority was already damaged by his party's defeat on 6 September at the hands of the AfD, a result that unsettled many Germans who had believed the country had developed a lasting immunity to nationalism and claims of racial superiority after confronting its Nazi past through education and laws outlawing persecution.