AfD Surge in East Germany Threatens to Topple Merz Government

The Real Crisis Isn’t AfD’s Rise — It’s CDU’s Collapse

The headlines will focus on the Alternative for Germany surging again. But the more destabilizing story unfolding in eastern Germany is something far more consequential for the future of the German government: the Christian Democratic Union is facing the very real possibility of disappearing from state legislatures entirely.

On September 20, voters in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern go to the polls. Two weeks earlier, AfD took first place in Saxony-Anhalt, a result that sent tremors through European capitals. Now the same trajectory is widening. And with it, Chancellor Friedrich Merz faces a governing crisis that extends far beyond lost seats.

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: A Historic Defeat Looming

Local polls published on September 17 put AfD at 36 percent in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, up dramatically from 16 percent in 2021. The combined CDU-SPD coalition sits at 37 percent — but that number hides a deeper fracture. CDU alone is polling at just 6 percent.

Germany’s 5-percent threshold means anything below that earns no seats in the state parliament. German media are already using the phrase “historic defeat” for CDU. Party insiders describe the campaign as an existential fight for survival.

The party’s own leadership is visibly alarmed. Multiple emergency meetings are scheduled for September 20 following the vote. Merz cancelled his scheduled speech at the UN General Assembly in New York on September 22 — Foreign Minister Waidef will represent Germany instead.

What makes this especially damaging is that Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has long been a CDU stronghold in the east, a region where the party built its post-reunification reputation on representing eastern German interests against what it framed as western domination. Losing the ability to even enter the state parliament would represent not just a numerical setback but a symbolic annihilation of the CDU’s eastern identity. Several longtime local CDU figures have already privately acknowledged to reporters that a complete exit from the Landtag would force a fundamental reevaluation of the party’s strategy in the region — possibly including a generational leadership purge.

Berlin: The Fortress Under Siege

The stakes in Berlin are different but equally sharp. CDU traditionally holds strong here, built on its base in former West Berlin. Yet AfD is closing fast at 18 percent, up from just 9.1 percent in the 2023 state election. At 20 percent, CDU is no longer comfortably safe in its own stronghold.

What makes Berlin notable is the speed of the shift. AfD nearly doubled its share of the vote in a single electoral cycle. That trajectory, if it holds, signals a voter base that is not merely protesting — it is consolidating. Analysts at the Berliner Institut für Populationsforschung note that AfD’s gains are concentrated among younger voters under 40, a demographic that has historically leaned center-left or center-right but is now being pulled toward the far right on issues of immigration and cultural identity.

The SPD, traditionally Berlin’s dominant force, is also under pressure. Polls show the social democrats dropping to around 15 percent, creating a three-way split that could leave the traditional coalition parties both outside the legislature. This dynamic echoes patterns seen in previous eastern German elections but with an important difference: Berlin is not the east. It is a city-state with deep roots in the western German political tradition, and its flirtation with AfD represents a breach in territory that party strategists considered impregnable.

The Merz Question

Forces within CDU are already discussing whether Merz should step down if the election results match current polling. The weekly magazine Focus reported three possible scenarios, including one in which party officials formally request Merz’s resignation as chancellor.

Merz was also scheduled to visit Japan in late September. Diplomatic sources in both countries say the trip could be affected if the election results trigger a governmental crisis at home. Japanese trade ministers had anticipated discussions on semiconductor cooperation and energy transition partnerships — talks that would now hang in uncertainty.

The criticism building inside the governing coalition is pointed. Some CDU members argue that continuing to refuse any cooperation with AfD — even in eastern states where the party holds power — is politically naive. The argument, as one source put it to local reporters, is that AfD is “the party the people chose,” regardless of ideology.

Whether that argument holds water depends on whom you ask. But it reflects a genuine tension in German conservatism: how do you govern a country when a significant portion of the electorate has moved elsewhere? The cordon sanitaire — the unwritten rule that no democratic party should coalition with AfD — was forged in the fires of 2017 and reinforced after the Halle attack in 2023. It has held at the federal level but is now cracking under the weight of repeated electoral defeats in the east.

Why This Matters Beyond Germany

The implications reach far past Berlin’s city limits.

Germany is the European Union’s largest economy and its most important political anchor. A fracturing governing coalition in Berlin creates immediate uncertainty around EU fiscal policy, migration strategy, and defense spending — all of which depend on German leadership stability. Markets have already begun pricing in risk. Bond yield spreads on German bunds relative to French OATs widened slightly in the days following the Saxony-Anhalt result, a modest but telling signal that investors are monitoring the political landscape with growing unease.

The eastern flank of the EU — Poland, the Baltics, Romania — watches these results closely. AfD’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt and potential wins in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin demonstrate that the party’s appeal is not isolated to one region. It is spreading along demographic and economic fault lines that run through eastern Europe itself.

The pattern is familiar but accelerating: economic anxiety in former East Germany, dissatisfaction with immigration policy, and a sense that mainstream parties have stopped listening. AfD packages all three into a single electoral message. What distinguishes this cycle is the velocity. In 2021, AfD won 20 percent in the east and 10 percent in the west. This time, the gap is narrowing. The party is no longer contained by geography.

Second-order effects are already visible. Local AfD officials in Saxony-Anhalt have begun reshaping municipal policies around stricter migration enforcement and cultural preservation rhetoric. If the party gains similar control in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin, those policy experiments could scale rapidly, creating a patchwork of far-right governance across eastern Germany that operates independently of federal constraints.

What Happens Next

If AfD takes first place in both Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin, Merz’s governing majority becomes unstable. The CDU may lose its ability to form coalitions at the state level, which would weaken its leverage in the Bundesrat — the upper house where states directly influence federal legislation.

A weakened Bundesrat means a weakened chancellor. Merz could face a legislative gridlock that makes implementing reforms on immigration, energy, or defense extraordinarily difficult. The current government’s flagship policies — including the planned expansion of renewable energy infrastructure and reforms to asylum processing — could be blocked by a Bundesrat dominated by AfD-controlled or AfD-influenced state delegations.

The opening for AfD is not just about winning votes. It is about proving that the traditional parties cannot govern the eastern states — and that the only alternative is the party they have spent years refusing to talk to. Each electoral gain strengthens that narrative. Each CDU defeat in the east reinforces the far-right claim that it is the sole authentic voice of eastern German voters.

What the Numbers Don’t Show

Polls are snapshots, not destinies. But the directionality is unmistakable. AfD’s rise in the east is not a temporary protest vote; it is a structural realignment. The party has moved from the fringes of German politics into the center of regional governance. Its organizational capacity has grown correspondingly. Local chapters in Saxony-Anhalt now maintain professional staff, media operations, and policy research capabilities that rival those of established parties.

The CDU’s decline, meanwhile, is not merely numerical. It is institutional. Branches in rural eastern communities are dissolving. Young members are leaving for other parties or abandoning politics altogether. The party’s federal apparatus is struggling to insert effective campaigns into regions where its local infrastructure has atrophied.

The Numbers That Matter

AfD in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: 36 percent (up from 16 percent in 2021)
CDU in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: 6 percent — below the 5-percent threshold danger zone
AfD in Berlin: 18 percent (up from 9.1 percent in 2023)
CDU in Berlin: 20 percent — historically safe, now under pressure
Merz’s UN appearance: cancelled
Japan visit: uncertain

Vote counting begins in Japan time early on September 21.

The results will determine not just who governs eastern Germany, but whether Germany can govern at all. For Merz, the stakes extend beyond any single election. They define whether the CDU can reinvent itself as a party that speaks to eastern Germans again — or whether it becomes a western German party presiding over the irreversible loss of half the country it was founded to represent.