While there will be little tangible impact on Merz’s federal coalition, he will bear much of the political blame should mainstream conservatives suffer major losses to the AfD in those states. That’s partly because, in an increasingly populist age, Merz has a hard time projecting himself as a man of the people.
Even before he became chancellor, Merz — a former BlackRock executive known for flying his own private jet around Germany — was often accused of being out of touch with regular voters.
Indeed, Merz often seems more at ease engaging with business leaders than fielding questions from the public. This could help explain why much of his tour of the country in recent days has involved speaking in front of business audiences, where he is more likely to be well received.
At an “Entrepreneurs Day” event in in the western German city of Düsseldorf last week, Merz touted his cabinet’s recent approval of a healthcare reform package intended to control ballooning costs and his government’s push for less EU regulation in Brussels. As in his stop in Salzwedel, he asked the business leaders to allow more time for his government to undertake the sweeping reforms to tax and pension systems many of them deem necessary to restore Germany’s competitive edge.
“This is a process that I am driving forward, that I intend to continue driving forward, and that I wish to accelerate,” Merz said. “But — and this is also part of it — in a democracy, it cannot simply be decreed. It must be achieved painstakingly, step by step,” Merz went on, adding that “democracy is sometimes slow” and “it is sometimes laborious.”
Part of Merz’s problem is that he came into office promising his government would turn things around rapidly. In his first parliamentary speech after taking office, Merz vowed that Germans would start to feel the country was changing “for the better” by last summer.