Federal Government | Political undead

Politically, Chancellor Friedrich Merz is only being kept alive artificially. Photo: Kay Nietfeld/dpa In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the CDU was thrown out of the state parliament and in Berlin it also lost a large number of votes. And after a year of constant decline and catastrophic poll numbers, just in time for the beginning of autumn, the spooky season, there is nothing left of Chancellor Friedrich Merz but a political undead - actually already passé, but artificially kept alive.

Among the eight Dr. Frankensteins, the CDU Prime Minister, who recently publicly assured the Chancellor of their support in a statement, quite a few are probably already regretting their own words, because with the fall below the five percent in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, everything has turned out much worse than feared. The question that counts now is how long one has to wait before overthrowing the Chancellor without being seen by the population as breaking his word and untrustworthy.

The second open question is whether Hendrik Wüst will start the coup with the West German regional associations or Markus Söder together with the East German regional associations. No matter how many times the gentlemen call for solidarity, no one will believe them.

The alternative to overthrowing the chancellor would be to separate the party leadership and the chancellorship. It would be an opportunity for Merz to further prolong his political zombie existence and vent the frustration of his critics without having to resign as chancellor directly. This would actually be the most viable path for the Union, because the new party leader could then share the criticism of Merz and the government and Merz would no longer be in the dilemma of having to respond to both the SPD in order to get the reforms passed, whether watered down or not, and at the same time to the various opposing camps within the Union.

Merz would have sealed his political fate and would hardly run for chancellor again, but he could at least try to eat up all the criticism as a kind of coalition punching bag and still push through the reforms as a kind of administrator. Either way, this political zombie is Chancellor on credit. A normal completion of his term of office can no longer be thought of.

Interestingly, a similar hunt for the political leadership is taking place in the SPD, only without a comparable solidarity circus. At the Sozen, Hubertus Heil is currently posing as a vampire hunter. The ex-Federal Minister for Labor and Social Affairs and networker, who was fired by Klingbeil, still has a score to settle with the dogmatic model member of the Seeheimer Circle. Criticism from the base is getting louder and louder, but the level of political decay of the two red party leaders is probably nowhere near that of Friedrich Merz. Either way, we probably won't have to wait until Halloween for the latest twist in this political horror story.

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