Firewall compromised: has Friedrich Merz blown ‘democracy’s last shot’?

A cataclysm. A 9.0 earthquake. A five-alarm fire. A bitter rejection of Germany’s joyous reunification three decades ago, and a threat to the democratic postwar order.Sizing up the repercussions of last weekend’s win for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party in the former communist state of Saxony-Anhalt, German commentators expressed a sense of doom, panic and helplessness in the political establishment.With nearly 44% of the vote, the AfD fell three seats short of an absolute majority. Its media savvy chief candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, is racing to find enough support from the other parties to prop up what would be the first rightwing extremist state government since the Nazi period.AfD co-leaders Alice Weidel (right) and Tino Chrupalla (left) with Saxony-Anhalt lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund. Photograph: Ebrahim Noroozi/APIt is still anyone’s guess whether he will succeed, leaving a corrosive uncertainty at the heart of Europe’s top economic power. Hanging in the balance is the fate of Friedrich Merz’s centre-right government, once called “democracy’s last shot” to prevent an extremist takeover in Germany.The result in Saxony-Anhalt has put the conservative chancellor on the ropes, with further punishment for his Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) expected in two more state polls later this month.“This is the worst defeat for the CDU in years – decades – and something has changed, not just in Saxony-Anhalt but in all of Germany,” he said on Monday.Whether or not he survives politically until the next general election, due in 2029, will have dramatic repercussions for Germany and its European allies trying to beat back anti-democratic forces. Pivotal elections are due next year in countries including France, Spain, Italy and Poland.Merz’s many critics say the 70-year-old former BlackRock executive is the wrong man at such a consequential crossroads, calling him a ham-fisted and empathetically challenged leader who is erratic in his messaging.Only in office 16 months, the chancellor often seemed incapable of one of the basic tasks of leadership: making the case to voters that accepting bitter pills now could lead to a brighter future, said the political scientist Thomas Biebricher of Frankfurt’s Goethe University.Friedrich Merz: his future as chancellor is uncertain. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images“The prevailing impression at the moment is that, in terms of communication, he is unable to explain the many reforms – and the sacrifices they entail – to the public, and thereby win their acceptance,” Biebricher said, referring to planned cuts to the statutory pension and healthcare schemes.The former chancellor Angela Merkel, Merz’s longtime rival within the CDU, has criticised him publicly for his hardline rhetoric on migration and integration but said she took no pleasure in the debacle given the stakes.“This is a turning point – a real turning point – in the history of the federal republic of Germany,” said Merkel, who left office of her own accord in 2021 after 16 years in power. “As a CDU member it breaks my heart.”Merz speaking to Angela Merkel at the CDU federal conference in Stuttgart in February. Photograph: Getty ImagesSpeaking at a digital affairs conference on Tuesday, she advised Merz to rethink his messaging in a changing political ecosystem in which emotions counted more than facts.Merkel, 72, noted that the CDU had pointed to data during the Saxony-Anhalt campaign showing that joblessness had fallen and household wealth had risen in the small, relatively poor state. “And then [Siegmund] says: ‘That may be so, but that’s not how it feels.’”The AfD formed in 2013, during Merkel’s tenure, as a Eurosceptic outfit opposed to bailouts for debt-mired countries. It grew increasingly radical during the 2015-2016 refugee influx, when she left the borders open to more than a million asylum seekers fleeing war and hardship.Merz took office last year saying he would put the country back on track after the implosion of the previous government under Olaf Scholz. He promised a return to economic growth, a restoration of defence capabilities and urgent repairs to the creaking social welfare system.His recipe for confronting the far right – one of his key pledges – was competence in governing and solutions for Germans’ most urgent problems.Merz also promised a rejection of Merkel’s open-border policy in an attempt to rob the AfD of its signature issue. He had infamously accepted support from the far-right party for a tough draft law on migration just before the February 2025 general election, before back-pedalling in the face of protests.AfD co-leader Alice Weidel walks past Merz at the Bundestag this week. Photograph: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty ImagesAs “irregular” arrivals of migrants have fallen sharply since Merz took office, the AfD has successfully pivoted to a broader range of concerns about deindustrialisation, regional identity, affordability and crime to gain ground far beyond its eastern heartland.The AfD, widely seen as more radical than comparable European parties, had been relegated to permanent opposition in Germany by the “firewall” strategy of shunning by the mainstream parties. But this policy is now widely seen to have failed, allowing the AfD to snipe from the sidelines about the slow pace of any positive change.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiebricher said that for all Merz’s weaknesses, replacing him would not be a magic bullet for the mountain of challenges facing German security and prosperity.A forensic technician works near a Ukrainian aircraft at Leipzig airport, where a drone with an explosive device was found last month. Photograph: Hendrik Schmidt/DPA/APAs well as the threat from Russia, he cited decrepit infrastructure, the demographic crunch on social welfare benefits, competition from China in once mighty industries such as car manufacturing, and geopolitical upheaval weighing on supply chains and energy imports.“None of that simply goes away the moment you have someone who communicates better,” Biebricher told public radio.Volkswagen employees during a rally against mass job cut plans in Zwickau in July. Photograph: Jens Schluter/AFP/Getty ImagesMerz’s centre-right CDU-CSU bloc, divided between conservatives and moderates, is nevertheless known for its internal discipline in times of crisis – if only out of fear of even graver consequences from drastic changes.The situation is seen as so grim that it has triggered paralysis, with neither the popular North Rhine-Westphalia state premier, Hendrik Wüst, or Bavaria’s ambitious leader, Markus Söder, keen at this stage to snatch the poisoned chalice.“Merz has now reached a stage where the crisis – which he himself constantly exacerbates – is stabilising him,” said the veteran political journalist Bernd Ulrich of Die Zeit newspaper.“The CDU and the government (in coalition with the Social Democrats) as a whole are in such a dire state that, as far as anyone can tell, no one wants to take over his post.”Wüst, 51, leads a coalition with the Greens in Germany’s most populous state and faces a re-election battle next April. If he wins, the calls for Merz to make way for him may grow louder.Söder, who represents the bloc’s conservative wing, shares Merz’s view that it needs to echo the AfD’s harsh rhetoric on migration in order to win back support – a strategy political scientists have long disparaged as counterproductive.‘We should have learned more from history’: Germans react to AfD win – videoYet the dangers of keeping a revolt at bay by betting on a status quo voters so clearly reject are apparent.Much will depend on how bad the news is from the regional elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on 20 September. The AfD is polling well in both states, with clear momentum after Saxony-Anhalt, putting pressure on the CDU in particular.During a fiery clash with the AfD in parliament this week in which he laid out the threat it poses to German democracy, Merz was reflective about how to steer the country – and himself – out of the current straits.He quoted from a letter he received from the rector of a theological university arguing how many opportunities still lay ahead for Germany and advising him not to give in to despair.Merz said he intended to take this to heart and stay on as chancellor using a new roadmap: “Admit mistakes, forgive, get back on your feet, shape the future.”