If all goes to plan, Frederick Merz Will become Federal Republic10th Chancellor on 6 May. Two remaining obstacles seem to be formalities: on Monday, their Orthodox Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will call the Center with Center to approve the alliance contract for a special party conference Social Democratic Party (SPD). Then, a few days later, the members of the SPD – despite some mumbling – is expected to approve the alliance in one vote, with the results declared on 30 April.
But Merz will not have long to enjoy congratulations. Even though he won the national election in late February, the 69 -year -old personal popularity appears on a permanent slide: for the research institute according to the April pole for Forsa Harsh The magazine, only 21% of the respondents considered Merz as reliable – nine per cent marks less than in August, and three points below January.
The same survey found that only 40% of the respondents consider the visiting Chancellor to be a strong leader, and 27% think that Merz “knows what people do,” both represent nine-point falls since January. On the other hand – in fact, the only leadership criteria in which Merz scored a majority in the survey – around 60% of the respondents believe the merge “speak wisely.”
A knot-so-grand alliance
It is not a shock that Merz is not an absolutely popular Chancellor-in-Whats Germany Have you ever seen But Ursula Munch, director of the Tutting Academy for political education in Bavaria, told DW that this is not his fault. Munch said, “The circumstances are very different, as they used to be.” “We have a government that has a relatively low proportion of support among voters.”
Mars has not chosen the most lucky moment in history: among traditional political parliament, a coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD is called “Grand Alliance”, as for many decades these two parties represented a majority of the voters of Germany (sometimes more than 80%). In the fragmented scenario of 2025, in which parties have been shattered again and scattered again in the last 20 years, two big centralist parties can claim to represent only 45% of the voters, going from the February election results.
Trust issues of merz
There are two clear reasons why the perception of the trustedness of merz in the last few months. In January, Merz broke her own word when she became the first CDU leader to pass a resolution through Bundestag with a support for a distant option to Germany (AFD), of which the entire faction is considered a threat to the democratic order of Germany by the intelligence agencies.
For CDU supporters, however, it seemed that a few weeks later looked like a low-message-u-turn compared to the performance: In March, the party leader agreed to improve a debt brake improvement with SPD and greens, which administered the path for € 1 trillion ($ 1.14 trillion) in new loops, some of them ruled in the entire election campaign.
Unexpectedly, many of his voters felt betrayal. In the “Politberometer” poll done by public broadcaster ZDF At that time, some 73% of Germans agreed that they cheated voters – including some 44% of CDU/CSU supporters.
Merz’s head-a-the-wall attitude
Merz has problems that go much further than their U-turn. Surveys have shown that he is particularly unpopular among women. A Foilsa survey in March 2024 found that only 9% of women between the ages of 18 to 29 saw Merz as their favorite Chancellor candidate.
The upcoming Chancellor has been placed with allegations of misunderstanding. In 1997, as often brought, he was one of the Bundestag members who voted against the recognition of rape as a crime within marriage. In October last year, they were criticized to dismiss the idea of gender-balanced cabinets, and a photo released in February did not help in the reputation that the main negotiaters of the CDU/CSU block were all middle-aged people.
Merz is also unpopular in East Germany, where he regularly placed AFD’s Ellis Vedel and SPD’s Olaf Sholaz in the election run-up in the election-partially, it seems, because of their combative attitude towards Russia.
AFD problem of merz
The calculation of Merz seems to be, with right-wing populistism, with apparently growth worldwide, what people want is directly leading. But localism is not making him more popular. In November 2018, when he first announced his candidature to re -take the leadership of CDU, Merz posted a tweet that seems to be a worse age with every month: “We can once again reach 40% and reduce AFD. It is possible!” He has written. “But we should make pre -condition for this. This is our work.”
Almost opposite. Since Merz finally re -taken the CDU leadership (at its third attempt), the party’s pole rating has been at 24%, while the AFD has not done half, but doubled: from 11%to 24%. The far-flung parties of Germany are now neck and necks.
But, of course, Marz has not yet got a chance to be a Chancellor, and Munch said that he may still be able to do good on his AFD prediction -if his government moves without internal conflict, then to dogs the alliance of Sholaz, and if it collides with an external crisis, such as the Kovid -19 pandem is overwhelmed. They are very big.
“The best way to keep AFD small is not making some random announcements about major changes in refugee policy that you cannot implement,” Moonch said. “These are concrete measures that people also notice. But it is not something that a new government can simply roam throughout the night. People need to be confident again, and this will be possible only when the economic forecast becomes more positive and the refugee number declines.”
Merz was initially considered a strong candidate due to his commercial background (he was on board in Blackrock for many years), indicating his economic skills. Over the years, however, his populist statements are rapid immigration, and this has not helped them shake AFD.
German industry pressure
