Germany's Merz struggles to stay on track after humiliating regional election defeat

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BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz faced a struggle to stabilize his position and keep his agenda on track Monday after voters inflicted two more defeats on his party, ejecting it from a state legislature for the first time in its eight-decade history.

The unpopular Merz vowed to stay on and push through reforms to Germany, Europe's biggest economy, minutes after polls closed Sunday in regional elections in Berlin and in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a largely rural eastern region on the Baltic Sea coast.

Still, final results underlined the extent of what Merz conceded was a “disaster” in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. His center-right Christian Democratic Union fell just below the 5% of the vote needed to keep seats in the regional parliament, the first time that has happened in 77 years of modern Germany's federal republic, after losing more than half its support.

The CDU also dropped to second place in Berlin behind the hard-left Left Party, which is in pole position to lead the next city government — though Merz's party could, depending on how coalition talks go, still retain city hall.

Neither state is one of Germany's political heavyweights. The CDU's 2023 win in Berlin was its only one in the past 25 years in the capital, which has tended to lean left, and the party was already weak in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

But the manner of its defeat in the latter in particular adds to the headwinds Merz faces after a stinging defeat by the far-right Alternative for Germany two weeks ago in Saxony-Anhalt, another region in the formerly communist east, damaged his authority and set off speculation that he might be replaced.

Alternative for Germany, or AfD, emerged as the strongest party in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, but the center-left Social Democrats — the junior party in Merz's national governing coalition — were fairly close behind after a campaign focused squarely on the state governor, Manuela Schwesig, as a bulwark against the far-right party. That polarization helped squeeze other mainstream parties, including the CDU.

A left-leaning three-party coalition under Schwesig would have a majority in the new regional legislature.

Schwesig and others in the governing parties have cast doubt on aspects of the federal government's reform agenda, which is meant to bolster a chronically sluggish economy. The reform plans include a potentially painful overhaul of the creaking pension system, a reduction of Germany’s stifling bureaucracy and cuts to income tax for low- and middle-income families.

The Social Democrats' national leaders said Monday that they stand by the coalition. But they made clear that they will seek at least some changes to the plans.

Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil, who is also the finance minister, said that “saying we will ignore what voters told us in three state elections won't work.”

“We need reforms, but these reforms must be fair and they need support in the population,” he said. The party's other co-leader, Labor Minister Bärbel Bas, said the plans need a “reality check” and a “fairness check,” but that she was optimistic of finding solutions on the pension system reform, the most controversial plan.

“There would be nothing more lethal than letting this coalition break apart over some technical question,” Bas said.

Merz faces more meetings Monday with his party's leadership. Much will depend on the CDU's influential regional leaders; the party's eight state governors last week backed the chancellor, though questions remained about how wholehearted their support was.

There are at least no more electoral tests this year. However, five state elections are scheduled next year, three of them in April.

They include one in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, currently led by a prominent CDU figure often cited as a possible successor to Merz, Hendrik Wüst. None of the five elections is in the east, where AfD is strongest.

“I don't see that swapping out a leadership figure would really bring a change,” Education Minister Karin Prien, who is also a deputy CDU leader, told Phoenix television, adding that she doesn't see “another personnel offer” coming.

“So we must now discuss with one another — together with the chancellor as a government, and on the other hand as a party — how we win more acceptance and more credibility among the population,” Prien said.