Merz's CDU Suffers Historic Losses in Berlin and the North-East

Chancellor Friedrich Merz's centre-right CDU suffered a historic defeat in state elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, with the far right finishing first.

Exit polls on 20 September pointed to heavy losses for the CDU in both Länder, the German term for states. Le Monde reported that provisional results on 21 September put the party below the 5% threshold for representation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Le Monde. DW described the outcome in both places as a historic defeat for Merz's party DW. The BBC said Merz leads the CDU BBC.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, DW said the Alternative for Germany (AfD) won the state election, finishing narrowly ahead of the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) DW. DW said the AfD vote stood at 37.9% in one September Land contest, and at 35.7% in a Land contest held on a Sunday in September DW. Failure to clear the Sperrklausel, the 5% hurdle for seats, would leave the CDU with no seats in Schwerin, the state capital. That is a sharp reversal for a party leading the federal government.

In Berlin, where the Abgeordnetenhaus, the city parliament, was elected on 20 September, Reuters said the arithmetic points to a possible far-left-led administration in the capital Reuters. The result completes a poor set for the CDU in the capital, where the BBC said exit polling had already signalled heavy losses BBC.

The September sequence goes beyond the two Länder counted on 21 September. Saxony-Anhalt elected its Landtag, its state parliament, on 13 September, and Lower Saxony held municipal elections on 20 September. DW said the AfD won the Saxony-Anhalt state election DW. Reuters reported the AfD on nearly 44% in a historic state election in September Reuters. CNN reported that the far right won again in the regional elections counted around 21 September CNN.

The Guardian said Merz acknowledged the results in the two Länder as disastrous and vowed to push on The Guardian. Reuters said no immediate challenge to his leadership emerged after the losses Reuters. He remains Chancellor.

Reuters reported that CDU voters flocked to the AfD in the September regionals Reuters. That direct move from the Union, the CDU bloc, to the AfD, combined with exclusion from the Schwerin Landtag on provisional figures, accounts for the scale of the Berlin and north-east results.

The broader context here is coalition management, in Berlin and in the Länder. A Chancellor whose party drops out of a Landtag while the AfD finishes first faces pressure in two places at once. Federal authority depends on Land minister-presidents, Bundesrat votes and a working party machine. Losses on that scale complicate candidate selection, campaign resources and discipline in the Bundestag group.

In my view, the absence of an immediate challenger should not be read as stability. German parties rarely move on the night. They commission reports, they hold conference debates, they test successors in the press. Merz has bought time by saying he will continue. The test will be whether CDU Land associations accept that pledge once full coalition talks begin, particularly if Berlin ends under far-left leadership and the east results harden into a pattern of AfD first places.

Looking at what this means for governing options, the figures underline fragmentation. AfD first places in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a strong AfD polling performance in Berlin, and a sub-threshold CDU result in the north-east narrow the combinations available to form majorities without the AfD. For practitioners, the questions now are procedural as much as political: who talks to whom in Schwerin and Berlin, what timetable the returning officers and Land parliaments set, and how long Merz can hold his party behind a single reading of a disastrous weekend.