Merz Keeps the Plan After the “Disaster”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the CDU’s losses in elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern a “disaster,” rejected resignation and said his government would continue its reform program. Partial results pointed to historic damage for the center-right party, including the possibility that it could lose parliamentary representation in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, while Alternative for Germany made major gains.

The immediate arithmetic is punishing. A CDU delegation that disappears or shrinks sharply leaves fewer routes to conventional governing majorities, gives AfD a larger bloc and forces the remaining parties to construct coalitions around both policy differences and their refusal to cooperate with the far right. The result is not merely a bad review of Merz. It changes who can assemble power in the rooms below him.

The case for staying the course

Merz has reasons not to perform a conversion on election night. Abandoning reforms before they have taken effect could validate party rivals who already doubt his leadership, unsettle coalition partners and teach voters that state defeats can halt federal policy. If he believes the program will improve material conditions, continuity can be defended as patience rather than vanity. Governments do sometimes recover when delayed results become visible.

But that defense requires a timetable, measurable outcomes and a theory of why the CDU lost. “Continue” is not yet an explanation. If voters rejected the substance rather than the pace or presentation, faster implementation will deepen the same conflict. Resolve and denial use identical stationery until the next result arrives.

What would make persistence rational?

Merz needs more than the old governing reflex that delivery eventually restores trust. He must show which reforms can produce recognizable benefits before the next electoral tests, which unpopular measures are indispensable and which can change without dissolving the program. He must also keep CDU officials from concluding that their safest strategy is to distance themselves from the chancellor before their own contests.

The strongest case against an immediate reversal is that AfD gains do not supply Merz with an obvious alternative platform; copying a rival rarely transfers its voters cleanly, and a rushed turn could fracture the coalition without rebuilding the CDU. The strongest case against continuity is simpler: the electorate has already supplied contrary evidence, and the party may soon lack seats from which to explain why the evidence should be ignored.

National polling, any formal challenge inside the CDU and the next state votes will now function as a sequence rather than isolated events. If support stabilizes while reforms take effect, the disaster may remain survivable. If the party keeps losing representation and coalition leverage, Merz will no longer be defending a program against panic. He will be asking the CDU to preserve his authority while its own disappears.