Germany’s Merz reaches out to AfD voters before pivotal regional election

BERLIN -  Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on July 15 he was confident that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) would not win outright majorities in regional elections in two eastern states this year.

“I will do everything within my power in Germany to prevent it,” said Merz, a conservative who has made combating the far right a key aim of his political programme.

“What we do today determines the fate of our children and grandchildren,” Merz said of his efforts to address Germany’s problems and win back voters from the AfD.

Polls give the AfD leads in both Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pommerania ahead of elections in those states in September.

In Saxony-Anhalt in particular, the party is viewed as having a realistic chance of winning a majority of seats and forming its first ever state-level government.

“The election campaigns are just getting under way,” Merz told an annual summer press conference.

“I remain confident that we will succeed in preventing the AfD from securing a parliamentary majority” in the forthcoming regional elections, he said.

“And I will maintain this optimism right up to election night,” he said.

Merz, whose own popularity has slumped as his government struggles to kick-start the economy, campaigned on boosting growth and cracking down on migration.

The 70-year-old conservative contended that delivering on both would halt the AfD, which he has described as a threat to German democracy.

Merz on July 15 defended his record in office despite the slow pace of reforms and continued stagnation of Europe’s largest economy.

“The overall picture is positive,” Merz said, saying that his coalition government had “found its stride, despite some criticism”.

“We have delivered, and we have recognised the scale of the tasks ahead of us,” Merz said.

The AfD has long been strong in the former communist east of Germany, which includes Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pommerania.

Merz’s Christian Democrats currently lead a broad coalition government in Saxony-Anhalt.

The Social Democrats, Merz’s centre-left national coalition partners, have continuously governed Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania since the end of communism and reunification in 1991.

Every other German political party has refused to cooperate with the AfD, a policy known as the “firewall”.

The chancellor said that he “enjoys frequently travelling through the east” and has been seeking “to convince the people there of what we believe to be right”. AFP