LINSTOW: Germany’s ‘unpopular’ conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned on Saturday of a potential ‘big bang’ breakthrough by the far right in two regional elections in September.
‘There is more at stake than just the future of a government’ in the elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, he said in a speech to his party congress in the latter region.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is now well ahead in the polls in both of these former East German states.
Centre-right leader Merz meanwhile is the most unpopular leader of post-war Germany, struggling to pass economic reforms with the centre-left.
Europe’s largest economy is grappling with sluggish growth and an ageing population.
Polls have shown the AfD overtaking Merz’s centreright alliance at national level, prompting talk of his potential ousting.
‘If we are not good enough, then just such a big bang will happen’ in September, ‘in a different way from what some may have imagined,’ he said.-AFP