“Friedrich Merz has been haunted by a past boast that he could cut the support of Germany’s surging far-right party in half,” Bloomberg reports.“Instead, the German chancellor watched this month as the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany trounced his conservative Christian Democrats in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt…”“The fallout has shaken Germany’s political establishment and stoked calls within the party to push Merz out after only 16 months in office. With polls showing his personal popularity at a record low for any post-World War II chancellor, the crisis is set intensify on Sunday, when two more states head to the polls.”