Germany’s Merz struggles to contain ‘chancellor swap’ talk
Younger, more popular conservative Hendrik Wüst emerges as dark horse for the chancellery as polls slide
Just over a year after taking office, Friedrich Merz faces what few German chancellors have encountered so early in their term: persistent talk of a younger and more popular party colleague replacing him.
Hendrik Wüst, the 50-year-old prime minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, shares many of Merz’s attributes: he is also tall, tie-wearing and steeped in the conservative heartlands of western Germany. But he has something the chancellor lacks: public appeal.
Wüst has not said he wants Merz’s job. But a statesmanlike visit to Poland accompanied by Berlin-based journalists last week, including a carefully choreographed stop at Auschwitz, was enough to prompt a flurry of commentary about a change at the top.
“Suddenly Hendrik Wüst is touted as the replacement chancellor,” the centre-left Stern magazine declared on Monday.
“Wüst against Merz: it seems inevitable,” followed a commentary in the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Is a chancellor swap looming?” asked rightwing tabloid Bild on its front page on Wednesday.
“The question is: is Friedrich Merz still the right one?” an anchor of the country’s most viewed news show, the Tagesschau, wondered on Thursday.
The debate has grown prominent enough for senior figures in Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to intervene. People close to the chancellor have dismissed the discussion as “absurd” and “dangerous”. One government insider accused titles owned by media group Axel Springer, which include Bild, of waging a “campaign”.
“It’s a very improbable scenario,” another insider said. “But [Merz] is under pressure from his own ranks.”
The debate reflects growing anxiety within Merz’s CDU over shrinking support ahead of difficult regional elections in eastern Germany in September.
Support for the CDU has slipped to around 23 per cent, while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has risen to 28 per cent despite Merz’s pledge to curb its advance. High energy prices driven by the war in Iran and deadlocked talks with his Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners over welfare reforms have deepened voter discontent, pollsters say.
Never a popular figure, Merz appears to be suffering most. With fewer than a fifth of Germans satisfied with his performance, he is now less popular than his SPD predecessor, Olaf Scholz, at a much later point in his term. Merz, 70, ranked last in a Bild popularity ranking published this week. Wüst, meanwhile, ranked third — the highest of any CDU politician.
For Jana Puglierin, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Berlin office, the episode underscores that Germany is no more immune to political volatility than France or the UK.
Merz has projected strength abroad, after loosening debt restrictions to inject €1tn into Germany’s derelict infrastructure and military, and emerging as the biggest donor of military aid to Ukraine. He criticised the US-Israeli war on Iran as ill-prepared and humiliating, triggering a massive row with Donald Trump.
But at home, he lacks a strong power base. It took him three attempts to become party chair and two attempts to be elected chancellor in the Bundestag.
“Europe thought that Germany was more stable than France and the UK, with its fiscal space and its coalition,” Puglierin said. “But as it turns out, Germany’s domestic politics are more shaken than people think.”
Panic is creeping through the CDU, once a big-tent party able to attract a wide array of voters but now feeling directionless, she added.
After Angela Merkel’s centrist rule, Merz promised to take the party back to its conservative roots and lure voters away from the AfD. This has involved tightening immigration rules and relaxing green regulation. The CDU won last year’s elections with 28 per cent, less than he had hoped for, while the AfD won a record 21 per cent, becoming the second largest party in parliament.
As the CDU’s poll ratings have fallen, attention has turned to “alternative models” such as Wüst, whose successful coalition with the Greens in North Rhine-Westphalia offers a different template, Puglierin said.
Andreas Rödder, a historian and former senior CDU official, says that while there are “no current plans to overthrow Merz”, the concerns stem from a “great deal of dissatisfaction with him, which could turn into panic”.
CDU insiders, commentators and political analysts agree that replacing Merz midterm is highly unlikely.
The constitution allows for a change of chancellor without fresh elections through a so-called constructive vote of no confidence, under which a parliamentary majority agrees on a successor. Unlike in the UK, a German chancellor need not be an MP.
In 1966, CDU Chancellor Ludwig Erhard resigned after his liberal coalition partner left his government. His successor, Kurt Kiesinger, avoided new elections by forming a new coalition with the SPD. In 1982, SPD Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was replaced by CDU leader Helmut Kohl after the liberal partner switched sides.
A similar scenario would probably require Merz to step aside, Wüst to enter the race and the SPD to back him as chancellor.
“Wherever you look, this scenario makes no sense. It’s only possible if Merz wants it. All other scenarios are out of the question,” Roland Koch, the former CDU premier of Hesse and a Merz ally, told the FT.
These “theoretical discussions” arise because “the situation is so critical for the coalition, which has done some things right but is in trouble because of the economic situation”, he said.
The SPD is to blame, Koch said, for failing to embrace bold reforms. “I am astonished at how little the two coalition parties can agree on economically.”
Regional elections in the former eastern communist state of Saxony-Anhalt, where polls suggest the AfD is within reach of winning an absolute majority, are looming large over the debate.
“There are no popular reforms, but best to see them through before these elections rather than having to admit that nothing can be done,” Koch said.
Merz this week addressed the debate indirectly, telling voters in his constituency that he was “personally determined” to revive Europe’s largest economy, and promising a big package of measures before the summer. Earlier that day, Wüst told reporters Merz had “his full support”.
A government spokesman on Friday said the chancellor was “focused on the reform process”, adding: “All other matters are irrelevant.”
If the AfD becomes the first far-right party to win a state election in postwar Germany, pressure on Merz would intensify sharply, said Andrea Römmele, a political scientist at Berlin’s Hertie School.
Still, replacing him would require the support of the very man at the centre of the speculation.
“It says more something about the CDU — how insecure they are,” Römmele said.