Merz flubs his comeback tour

BERLIN — As Friedrich Merz’s popularity plunges to new lows — compounding his already-weak coalition’s troubles little more than a year into office — the chancellor is traveling the country to persuade Germans that things remain on the right track.

It’s not going well. Instead, Merz looks like he is only compounding his problems, often appearing out of touch and further alienating some of the very voters he can least afford to lose.

A stop in Salzwedel, a town lined with half-timbered homes in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, on April 30 laid bare the chancellor’s vulnerability. In an area where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is far ahead in polls ahead of a regional vote in September, anger over rising costs of everything from energy to health insurance was palpable as the audience pelted the chancellor with questions about their bread-and-butter concerns.

One woman stood up, and with her voice trembling into the microphone, told the chancellor that she had advanced skin cancer and wouldn’t be able to afford her own funeral. Why, she asked, were the chancellor and his ministers cutting back medical benefits while seeking pay rises for themselves?

Merz offered no words of understanding or consolation, reacting only with a lecturing flash of anger.

“At no point — not once — has anyone ever considered raising the salaries of members of the federal government,” he said sternly. “At no point. Anything else is a false claim. And I would simply be grateful if you would not repeat this without verifying it. At no point!”

Though the woman’s assertions about pay rises for politicians were largely false, Merz’s unsympathetic response drew harsh criticism, and the exchange reinforced an existing weakness for Merz. He has never been regarded as a particularly adept retail politician, and critics have long accused him of seeming aloof and prickly.

“Merz lectures a woman with cancer: How thin-skinned is the chancellor?” ran the headline of one essay in the German daily Tagesspiegel.

The chancellor’s failure to connect with voters is one reason a vast majority of Germans — 86 percent — are unhappy with the work of the coalition government, according to the benchmark DeutschlandTrend survey. Merz is markedly less popular than even his ill-fated predecessor, Olaf Scholz, was at the same point in his chancellorship.

That’s a bad omen for Merz given that Scholz’s left-leaning government collapsed amid infighting over spending, paving the way for Merz’s rise to power last May based largely on a promise to rapidly rejuvenate Germany’s long-ailing, export-driven economy.

The problem for Merz is that voters no longer believe he can deliver on that promise. Only 24 percent of Germans believe he can turn the economy around according to the DeutschlandTrend survey. Only 14 percent believe Merz “communicates effectively.” Only 44 percent believe the coalition should endure until the next federal election set for 2029.

Other exchanges during the stop in Salzwedel illustrated the growing frustration with his leadership.

A sign reading “Here, Germany and Europe were separated until the 23rd of December 1989, at 0600,” stands next to an old East German watchtower near Salzwedel in October 2019. | John Macdougall/AFP via Getty Images

When one person asked: “What, exactly, has improved for citizens since you became chancellor?” the question triggered a round of sardonic laughter from the crowd.

Merz’s reply didn’t address many of the immediate pocketbook concerns members of the audience were raising. Rather, he claimed to have saved NATO and Europe.

“Well, it’s too early to take stock,” Merz said. “But in this past year, we’ve managed to — and you may not view this as valuably as I do — but in this past year, we’ve managed to save NATO. Through our defense contributions and my commitment to the European Union, we’ve also held Europe together.”

Merz then called for patience as the government moved to address the economic concerns on the minds of so many in the audience.

“We are now moving step by step toward the reforms that will enable us to maintain our prosperity,” he said. “I admit I would have liked it to happen faster. But it is also true that our democracy takes time.”

For many voters, however, it already appears to be too late.

Out of touch

The greatest beneficiary of Merz’s political failures is the AfD, which has now clearly surpassed the chancellor’s conservative bloc in polls. The far-right party has been hitting Merz hard, not only on immigration — but also on skyrocketing energy prices and the economy.

While Merz is urging patience as he struggles to agree on difficult reforms with center-left coalition partners in the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the AfD is proffering simple solutions that more easily resonate with many voters, particularly in its strongholds of the former East Germany: restore relations with Moscow; resume the flow of cheap Russian gas; deport migrants.

The political pressure on Merz and his coalition is only likely to intensify ahead of September elections in the two eastern states where the AfD is surging and historic victories for the party are expected, based on current polling. 

While there will be little tangible impact on Merz’s federal coalition, he will bear much of the political blame should mainstream conservatives suffer major losses to the AfD in those states. That’s partly because, in an increasingly populist age, Merz has a hard time projecting himself as a man of the people.

Even before he became chancellor, Merz — a former BlackRock executive known for flying his own private jet around Germany — was often accused of being out of touch with regular voters.

Indeed, Merz often seems more at ease engaging with business leaders than fielding questions from the public. This could help explain why much of his tour of the country in recent days has involved speaking in front of business audiences, where he is more likely to be well received.

The greatest beneficiary of Merz’s political failures is the Alternative for Germany, which has now clearly surpassed the chancellor’s conservative bloc in polls. | Jens Schlueter/Getty Images

At an “Entrepreneurs Day” event in in the western German city of Düsseldorf last week, Merz touted his cabinet’s recent approval of a healthcare reform package intended to control ballooning costs and his government’s push for less EU regulation in Brussels. As in his stop in Salzwedel, he asked the business leaders to allow more time for his government to undertake the sweeping reforms to tax and pension systems many of them deem necessary to restore Germany’s competitive edge.

“This is a process that I am driving forward, that I intend to continue driving forward, and that I wish to accelerate,” Merz said. “But — and this is also part of it — in a democracy, it cannot simply be decreed. It must be achieved painstakingly, step by step,” Merz went on, adding that “democracy is sometimes slow” and “it is sometimes laborious.”

Part of Merz’s problem is that he came into office promising his government would turn things around rapidly. In his first parliamentary speech after taking office, Merz vowed that Germans would start to feel the country was changing “for the better” by last summer.

Instead, the fallout of the Iran war and U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats have only exacerbated the German economy’s structural problems, leading the government to slash growth forecasts.

Merz now seems to admit he set expectations unrealistically high. Asked in a public television interview last week what the biggest mistake of his first year in office was, Merz replied: “Perhaps being too impatient.”

He could have admitted to still more damaging mistakes.

Asked in the same inteview why he “sharply confronted a woman with cancer” during a public forum, Merz denied he had confronted her, but rather “simply challenged” her claim as factually inaccurate.

“But I can understand the criticism,” he added.