As shock at the scale of the far right’s resounding state-election victory in Germany reverberated on Sunday, not everybody was unhappy.

Seconds after the first exit polls from Saxony-Anhalt were revealed, Donald Trump posted the results on his Truth Social platform, seemingly delighted by the devastation of the centrist-conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the surge of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

It was indeed a humiliation for the CDU chancellor, Friedrich Merz, whose party lost more than half of its seats in the state parliament, while the AfD increased its count from 23 to 39.

This was the exact opposite of what Merz promised to deliver when campaigning for office. With good government under his guidance, he insisted, he would easily cut the AfD in half. The AfD’s co-leaders did not miss the opportunity to point out the historic upset in their victory speeches, with Alice Weidel even boasting the CDU would “never win an election again”.

Leaving the AfD’s swagger aside, this is a political earthquake with consequences far beyond a little state in the centre of Germany. The shock waves are still coming. To begin with, it is unclear if (and for how long) Merz can hold his own coalition together and cling to the chancellorship.

True, the losses in the state of Saxony-Anhalt are not directly his fault. But that is only because he is so unpopular that his own party did not want him to campaign. Merz’s face was not on any posters, and when he visited the state capital, Magdeburg, the public was carefully excluded. That says it all about his standing in his own party.

Two more elections are coming up on 20 September, in Berlin and the Baltic coastal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. On the current trajectory, the CDU is looking at two more debacles.

Merz’s leadership has become a liability, and it will be contested........

© The Guardian