CDU in deep crisis after election debacle in Saxony-Anhalt

Berlin. On the morning after the CDU's worst defeat since its existence, shock burrows into the party's soul. The Party of German Unity did not even achieve 20 percent in Saxony-Anhalt - even though it governs there and provides the Prime Minister. Hadn't the federal party's pollsters previously declared that the hard core of the CDU electorate, the regular voters, was 20 percent? In Saxony-Anhalt it was less than 18 percent. The party lost 20 percentage points for this.

Behind the scenes, the assessment was already clear in the evening and early Monday morning. The result was “a disaster” for the CDU. Others spoke of an “alarm signal”. Nobody expected that. There was also no crisis communication prepared in the event of an emergency.

The proof was provided by the perplexed statements made by leading CDU politicians on election evening. The new Secretary General Franziska Hoppermann called the first forecast on ARD shortly after 6 p.m. a “very difficult result”. “That also does a lot for us emotionally.” Otherwise she remained so taciturn that the moderator gave up after a few questions. She even seemed close to tears.

Hoppermann should actually have specified the communication in the first statement as part of his office. But Nina Warken, the new Chancellery Minister, spoke before her. The result was no longer one of the CDU alone, but also one of the CDU-led federal government. Internally it was said that party leader Merz had even briefly considered appearing in front of the press. “That would have completed the disaster.”

The CDU is in the deepest crisis in its history. It has only achieved 17.2 percent, more than half less than five years ago. The AfD is more than twice as strong at 43.8 percent. Even with the SPD, the Greens and the Left, the CDU only achieved as many seats in the new parliament as the AfD, which is classified as firmly right-wing extremist.

If the CDU had at least had the option of forming a government - even a minority government - the federal party would have glossed over the result. She would have pointed out that ultimately only 1.7 million people voted. If the party had gotten 20, or better yet 22 percent, it would have been even easier to explain everything somehow and move on.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) tried to spread some optimism during his second and final election campaign appearance last Thursday. Now he has to answer the question: what next? The senior party officials are still trying to stop a personnel debate about Merz, but it was also said there: The severity of the defeat was certainly not primarily due to the CDU's top candidate Sven Schulze - even if the first calls for his resignation came from the regional association on election evening.

And so the internal party discussion initially focused on the content. “If we continue as before, then we have a serious problem,” said the party leadership that morning. The people, as they stated in the election surveys, no longer trust the CDU to solve the problems.

They no longer trust the party that, since Konrad Adenauer, stood for pragmatism like no other and had the label of at least governing solidly. Passé. During the election campaign, top politicians from the Union had already remarked: “The people have finished with us.”

It is now all the more important to pass the reforms on pensions, health and reducing bureaucracy “quickly and ideally as a package,” it said. No more big debates. But of course that isn't enough. The coalition has no answers to people's problems: the fuel price of well over two euros per liter of gasoline and diesel, energy prices, the cost of living, and less and less net of gross. “People need to feel that something is changing.”

Things should also be fair again. Accordingly, refugees from Ukraine should be treated like other asylum seekers and no longer have any privileges.

But that alone is not enough, many are sure. The CDU is too far removed from the concerns of the population. Young people in particular expected clarity, especially on social issues. But the party doesn't give any answers. “We can no longer reach people,” reports a management member self-critically. “We don’t explain our policies properly and leave many questions unanswered.”

Schleswig-Holstein's Prime Minister Daniel Günther (CDU) spoke on the evening of the election that CDU Prime Minister Schulze had "held up the CDU flag despite the most difficult political environment" in Saxony-Anhalt. So will the election outcome be dangerous for the CDU federal chairman, Chancellor Friedrich Merz?

Some members of the party leadership sat together with the Chancellor in the Konrad Adenauer House on Sunday evening and followed the forecasts and projections together. In a survey by ARD, 59 percent of those surveyed said they saw the vote as a reminder for the federal government. 87 percent were dissatisfied with the work of Merz and his cabinet. AfD top candidate Ulrich Siegmund joked in an interview that Chancellor Merz was his “best campaigner”.

So Union politicians like the new leader of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei (CDU), or Warken, his successor in the Chancellery, tried to downplay questions about Merz. It was one of the few answers that Hoppermann had ready for her first TV appearance. After all, the party leadership had already agreed in the past few days to nip any personnel discussion in the bud. The government was elected for four years, she said.

But there was already great unrest in the party given the poor poll numbers. After the election results in Saxony-Anhalt, the mood was “explosive,” said a top CDU politician on election evening. Some people's patience with Merz is coming to an end.

The next hours and days would decide whether a discussion about Merz would be held. CDU Minister President Günther already called for a nationwide processing on Sunday. The reasons for the defeat in Saxony-Anhalt would "have to be analyzed and processed by the entire CDU."

In Saxony-Anhalt's regional association, however, the personnel discussion began on Sunday evening. Demands for Schulze to resign came from individual state politicians and the local Junge Union (JU).

Above all, however, resistance emerged against possible agreements with the Left Party. Schulze had kept this option open. He had ruled out a coalition with the AfD and the Left. However, a model like that in Thuringia or Saxony seemed conceivable: a minority government with the SPD and the Greens that gets votes from the left for certain projects in parliament.

Now the CDU's incompatibility decision will also have to be discussed again entirely. Some people have already expressed “the concern that the CDU will break up into an eastern CDU and a western CDU”.

In the past few days, some in Schulze's regional association had already spoken out against such considerations - to the annoyance of the election campaigning Prime Minister. In view of the collapse of the CDU and the triumph of the AfD, opponents of a minority government went on the offensive. “We have no mandate to form a government,” said Union faction deputy Sepp Müller, who comes from Saxony-Anhalt. “It’s now with the AfD.”