Angela Merkel – Wiki CommonsDebacle: ruling CDU failed to reach the 5% threshold and is out of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania regional parliament.As it was widely expected, failing German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has refused to resign after the new round of electoral humiliations for his CDU party.Merz, who 78% of voters want out of office, has led his party into a stunning series of defeats, bested by right-wing AfD in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and ousted by neo-communists of ‘The Left’.Merz is floundering – Wiki CommonsIt’s been rumored that members of his party want to ‘pull a Starmer’ on him: a ‘palace coup’ where the CDU would change the leader (and therefore crown a new Chancellor) without calling for a new election and without having the people vote for this new leadership.But who would be this German equivalent of Andy Burnham?Today, a new leader stepped in from the wings back onto the political stage, vowing to lead the CDU back to its roots.Watch: Angela Merkel leaves a bakery in Berlin, greeting fans.Almanya eski başbakanı Angela Merkel, başkent Berlin’de, bir fırından çıkarken görüntülendi.Çıkışta kendisine seslenen çevredekilere selam veren Merkel, daha sonra aracına binip bölgeden ayrıldı. pic.twitter.com/Mf8Ij63CMJ— Aykırı (@aykiri) September 21, 2026Politico reported:“German political heavyweight Angela Merkel avoided discussing her party’s latest election defeats on Monday, instead backing the Christian Democratic Union to return to its identity as a broad-based ‘people’s party’.The party and its current leader, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, are under pressure following disastrous election results that saw them lose to the far-right Alternative for Germany.”Merkel did not mention the elections or Merz.“Merkel spoke at the opening of a Bundestag exhibition on former Chancellors Konrad Adenauer and Willy Brandt, before joining Bundestag President Julia Klöckner for a discussion on Adenauer, democracy and politics. Adenauer, West Germany’s first postwar chancellor and the CDU’s first leader, helped shape the party as a broad-based Christian movement.”Read more:Former German Chancellor Angela Markel Criticizes EU for Not Maintaining a Dialogue With Russia, Refuses the Idea of Being the European Peace Envoy/*! This file is auto-generated */!function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i