If everything goes according to plan on May 6 Friedrich Merz will become the tenth Chancellor of GermanyS Although he won the election at the end of February, the rating of the 69-year-old CDU leader is increasingly lower. According to a public opinion study by the Forsa Institute in April ,. This is nine points lower than last August, and three points lower than January.
According to the same sociological survey, only 40 percent of people believe that the future chancellor is a powerful leader, and the percentage of respondents saying that Mertz knows what the people excite is only 27. About 60% of the Germans believe that the country’s future chancellor speaks understandably, the only criterion that has approved of Merz.
Not so big coalition
According to Ursula Munh, director of the Tutzing Political Science Academy in Bavaria, the unpopularity of Merz is not entirely his fault. « The circumstances are very different. Our government is now enjoying the support of a relatively small part of the voters, » she explains.
This is not the best time for Merz. Traditionally, the coalitions between the CDU/CSU and the GSDP are called a « great coalition » because for a long time the two parties represented most of the Germans, sometimes even over 80 percent. In 2025, however, the political landscape was more fragmented and the two major centrist parties represent only 45 percent of the voters.
The problems with the confidence in the mertz
Deutshe Welle
Friedrich Mertz after his election victory in February.
However, for the CDU supporters, this seemed less a terrible turn than the one Merz made a few weeks later. In March, the party leader agreed to reform the debt brake with the GSDP and the Greens, which made the way for new loans of 1 trillion euro – something he explicitly excluded during the election campaign. Completely expected, many of his voters felt betrayed. A study by ZDF showed that 73% of the Germans believe that Merz lured the voters. 44% of the CDU/CSU supporters are also of this opinion.
Problems with women
Friedrich Merz However, there are also problems that date from long before his last turns in policies. According to studies, it is particularly unpopular with women. A public opinion study since March 2024 showed that only nine percent of women between the ages of 18 and 29 would like to be Chancellor.
The future chancellor has been accused of marvelous. As is often recalled, he was one of the members of the Bundestag, who in 1997 voted against the recognition of rape in the marriage for a crime. Last October, he was criticized for rejecting the idea of gender -balanced cabinets. And a photo from February this year. It was as if he had reinforced his reputation: she showed the leading negotiators of the CDU/CSU coalition for joint management with the GSDP – all were middle -aged men.
Mertz is also unpopular in East Germany, where in the election campaign he regularly lags behind in sociological studies by both Alice Wedel and Olaf Scholz – it seems partly because of his belligerent attitude towards Russia.
Mertz’s problem with « Alternative to Germany »
Mertz seems to believe that in the obvious rise of the right populism around the world, people want a straight leadership. But it seems that populism does not make it more popular. Instead of doing so that The popularity of « Alternative to Germany » To begin to decline and that the CDU increases, as he promised in 2018, when he announced his candidacy for the leadership position in the CDU, the opposite happened: since Mertz took over the party leadership in January 2022, her rating had not moved, and that of the AZG was doubled.
Of course, Mertz has not yet become a chancellor. Ursula Munh suggests that he may be able to keep his promise with regard to AZG if his government is able to work without internal problems, such as the Sholz coalition harassed. Matters and whether the new cabinet will encounter serious problems such as the pandemia or the escalation of the war in Ukrainewho may force the chancellor to change his strategy again.
« The best way to keep AGG is unpopular is not to make accidental statements about major changes to refugee policy that you cannot make, » Munh says. « These are specific measures that people also notice. But this is not something that the new government can change overnight. People need to be given confidence again, and this will only be possible when economic forecasts become more positive and the number of refugees is decreasing. «
Initially, Mertz was considered a strong candidate precisely because of his business experience (for several years he was a member of the Board of Directors of the investment company Blackrock), which was supposed to be a signal for his economic insight. However, over the past few years, his populist statements have been increasingly related to immigration, and that did not help him get rid of « Alternative to Germany »S
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Toujours activé
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
