BERLIN — Friedrich Merz has tried to move on from his conservatives’ historic defeats to the far right in eastern Germany, but his biggest test as chancellor — and of his grip over his own party — may still lie ahead. The Alternative for Germany is pushing to deliver its biggest blow yet to the chancellor’s weakened coalition government by installing the country’s first far-right state premier since World War II in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt when lawmakers vote on the post in December. Merz’s fellow Christian Democrats in Berlin fear regional members of their own party will help the AfD do this, creating a nightmare scenario for the chancellor.
That concern stems from accusations that a group of Saxony-Anhalt conservatives already broke ranks by voting in a secret ballot for the AfD’s candidate for state speaker earlier this month, outraging national conservative leaders. The AfD “wants to annihilate the CDU in Germany” by “forcing us into a debate about how to deal with it in order to divide the party,” he added. It’s unclear what the party would do in a potential third round, when the AfD would only need a majority of votes cast.
AfD leaders have openly said they are seeking defections from conservative ranks, a strategy designed as much to sow division among conservatives as to win the premiership. That approach seems to be working, at least partly. State conservatives have faced intense criticism for appearing so divided and vulnerable to aiding the AfD that their leaders apparently have no choice but to avoid the vote altogether.
Local CDU lawmakers, however, say their approach is tactically necessary. Already, center-left lawmakers have attacked parts of Merz’s party as having failed to learn the lessons of Germany’s history, drawing parallels with the Nazis’ rise to power with conservative help. After local conservative lawmakers appeared to back the AfD’s candidate for the Saxony-Anhalt speaker earlier this month, Social Democratic Party (SPD) lawmakers in Berlin marched in protest past the Brandenburg Gate to a square where the Nazis carried out book burnings.
SPD Defense Minister Boris Pistorius sang the national anthem and called the episode the breaking of a taboo that “we haven’t seen in this form for more than 90 years.” Conservative lawmakers have retorted in recent weeks by attacking the SPD and Greens for letting their Berlin branches enter coalition talks with the Left — a far-left party rooted in the East German communist party— which won first in the city in last month’s election. But for Merz and his coalition government, the stakes of the December vote in Saxony-Anhalt are far greater. How the December vote will unfold remains highly unpredictable.
Ultimately, the AfD’s candidate for the premiership, Ulrich Siegmund, could win the post with support from Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht, a small, populist-left party that has expressed openness to working with the AfD and shares its Kremlin-friendly views. Merz is clearly alarmed by the prospect of CDU lawmakers covertly assisting the AfD — an outcome that could trigger his chancellorship’s greatest political crisis yet.
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