Why Germany is stuck with Friedrich Merz, for now

The CDU is collapsing in state elections, but removing the chancellor would require something his opponents still don’t have: a replacement September is proving a miserable month for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.Two weeks ago, his Christian Democratic Union suffered a crushing defeat in Saxony-Anhalt, where the Alternative for Germany won 43.8% of the vote against just 17.2% for the CDU, then, on September 20, another humiliation arrived in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.The AfD finished first there with 38.2%, while the CDU, one of the parties that built postwar Germany, received just 4.9% and failed to clear the threshold for representation in the state parliament. It was the party’s worst result in any German state election since the foundation of the Federal Republic, and it happened in Angela Merkel’s home state.Things were hardly better in Berlin, which voted on the same day. There, the CDU was beaten not by the AfD but by Die Linke (The Left), which won 25.7%, while the CDU slumped to 18.8%.Merz himself called the results a “disaster,” and if Saxony-Anhalt made discussion of replacing the chancellor respectable, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has made it unavoidable. Criti...