Say what you will about ex-BlackRock bigwig German Chancellor and uber-grinch Friedrich Merz, but he has his moments of unexpected alertness.

Currently, he is shocked, shocked! He has noticed that his party, the mainstream conservatives of the CDU are “in serious danger” after suffering their worst defeat in decades.

Germany’s dark star of unpopularity was, of course, talking about the results of the regional elections in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. They have produced a landslide victory for the new-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, under its shooting star Ulrich ‘Uli’ Siegmund. 

They delivered a colossal, devastating fiasco to the CDU and, of course, Merz personally: The AfD has scored 43.8 percent of the vote, the CDU 17.2 percent. When compared with the last state election, the AfD gained 23 percent, while the CDU lost 19.9 percent.

Polls show that the AfD has massively siphoned off former CDU voters and also mobilized previous non-voters with unprecedented success. In terms of age cohorts, the AfD is dominating almost the entire spectrum except among the very old.

The CDU, which had been in charge in Saxony-Anhalt’s capital of Magdeburg for over two decades, has suffered no ordinary defeat but a catastrophic wipe-out shaking the party, to quote Merz again, “to its very foundations.” The former default ruling party of first West and then post-1990 Germany is in tatters. It is a sign of even worse things to come. In Saxony-Anhalt it has no future, quite literally: among the youngest voters the CDU achieved a pitiful 5 percent, far below its already horrific overall result.

The man who has pro-actively led the party of Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel into this total debacle may still be in office for now. True to form, he shows no signs of accepting responsibility, that is, resigning. But rumors about a CDU rebellion against Merz were........

© RT.com