Merz Insists He's Staying After Party's 'Disaster'

Germany Chancellor Friedrich Merz logged a postwar low for his party on Sunday but remained defiant in electoral defeat, saying he's not going anywhere. Merz pledged Sunday to push ahead with what he calls tough but necessary economic reforms after his center-right CDU crashed to 5% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, exit polls show, its worst state election result since World War II. The far-right AfD surged to 37% there and also posted strong gains in Berlin, CBS News reports, where Die Linke came first and the CDU placed second with about 20%.

Merz labeled the results a "disaster" but said Germany's economic troubles make change more urgent, promising to show "backbone, steadfastness, and patience" rather than resign. AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla slammed that stance as "more than feeble" and said Merz should quit instead of carrying on "as before." Merz, 70, in office for 16 months and under pressure from some in his own party, cast his reform agenda as a cure for what he called the "poison of authoritarianism." With growth sluggish, unemployment topping 3 million, and AfD eyeing its first shot at leading a regional government in Saxony-Anhalt, Merz has even scrapped a planned trip to the UN—and is digging in for a fight at home.

Merz's authority was already damaged by CDU's stinging defeat by AfD in the Sept. 6 election in Saxony-Anhalt, a small eastern state. That result shocked many Germans who had believed their country had developed an immunity to nationalism and assertions of racial superiority, per the AP, after confronting the horrors of its Nazi past through education and laws to outlaw persecution.