Scholz’s Opponents Seek Quick Decision on 2025 German Challenger

(Bloomberg) -- Germany’s Christian Democratic opposition leader said he’s building momentum for a change of government in Berlin next year — portraying Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition as a weakened administration.

“We are practically no longer concerned at all, or only very little, with what comes from this coalition,” Friedrich Merz told reporters Thursday as conservative lawmakers of the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian affiliate met outside Berlin to discuss strategy for Germany’s federal election in just over a year.

Approval of Scholz’s government fell to the lowest yet — 16% — in a poll published Thursday, which put support for the conservative bloc at 33%, more than the combined total for Scholz’s three-party coalition. That approval rating is the lowest for any German government in 14 years, according to the Infratest Dimap poll for broadcaster ARD.

Scholz’s standing was hammered by defeats in regional elections on Sunday that saw populist parties of the right and left surge in two eastern regions. Possible plant closings by Volkswagen AG and the IG Metall union’s threat of strikes against VW this fall are adding to political risk in Europe’s biggest economy.

While Scholz’s coalition is beleaguered, Merz’s bloc needs to avoid a damaging fight over who should lead the conservative ticket in the Sept. 28, 2025 election.

Merz, heir to the party once led by former Chancellor Angela Merkel, is seeking a decision within weeks.

“The decision will be made in late summer, which has just started, but has not ended yet,” Merz said at the conservatives’ meeting in Neuhardenberg, east of Berlin. Summer in Germany officially ends on Sept. 21, the day before a state legislative election in Brandenburg, a region surrounding Berlin.

His most likely challenger is Bavarian state premier Markus Soeder, head of the Bavaria-based Christian Social Union, which teams up with the Christian Democrats in the federal parliament in Berlin.

“I wouldn’t shy away from taking responsibility for the whole country,” Soeder told an event in Bavaria this week.

ARD’s poll suggested Soeder, 57, is more popular among CDU-CSU supporters than Merz, 68, by a margin of 57% to 48%. The Sept. 3-4 poll of 1,309 people has a margin of error of as much 3 percentage points. 

Soeder’s comment shocked  many conservatives who remember his challenge to then CDU party head Armin Laschet before the last election in 2021. Laschet led the CDU-CSU to defeat, ending 16 years of CDU rule under Merkel and opening the door to Scholz’s Social Democrat-led coalition.

Merz said Thursday he’s in constant talks with Soeder. 

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