Merz warns against election of the AfD - "Destabilization of our democracy is getting closer"

When the bells of the Marktkirche begin to ring, Friedrich Merz gets a little angry. "What is going on in the minds of this federal government, seriously questioning the secure supply of ten million households with three nuclear power plants in this country," the CDU party leader railed and called on his listeners to give the traffic light coalition a " proper memo”. "They also have to know that the voters in a very large federal state simply say, now that's enough and now you have to correct this course." For a moment, the applause that followed from the Union supporters almost drowned out the bells of the market church.

It is a good moment for the Lower Saxony CDU, which this Friday evening in Hanover concludes an election campaign that, despite the proper conditions, has not really gone smoothly for a party that actually sees itself on the rise again. A year after the defeat in the federal elections, it has risen again to “number one”, as Merz proudly emphasizes at the beginning of his speech. And who would like to land their third consecutive victory in the state elections here in Lower Saxony on Sunday, after Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Merz has made a record-breaking twenty campaign appearances in the past five weeks, significantly more than any other party leader. Many of them together with Bernd Althusmann, the massive top candidate of the CDU and incumbent state economics minister. His declared election goal is to make the Union in Lower Saxony the strongest force in the state parliament and to replace the previous Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD). It is questionable whether Althusmann and his party can actually achieve this goal on Sunday.

The CDU, currently with a slight tailwind in nationwide polls, has been standing still in Lower Saxony for weeks. The research group elections attributed 28 percent to the party on Thursday. Five percent less than the SPD.

The gap between Christian and Social Democrats, which Merz and Althusmann actually wanted to close in recent weeks with a dedicated anti-traffic light election campaign, seems to be getting bigger rather than smaller. The criticism of the sometimes erratic policy of the federal government, the falling approval ratings for Scholz and Habeck, for the SPD and the Greens do not benefit the Union in Lower Saxony, but rather the AfD.

The party, which has only attracted attention in the past five years due to internal party quarrels, has almost doubled its poll numbers in recent weeks. It is very likely that she will enter the state parliament on Sunday with a double-digit result. It's about the mood in Lower Saxony, less about performance.

Friedrich Merz once again opposed this trend in Hanover, which was fatal for the Union. "Electing the AfD next Sunday," the CDU leader warns potential breakaway Union voters, "every vote for this party is a vote for red-green." He can understand that some people are dissatisfied, maybe frustrated and no longer like the rituals of politics and therefore not only want to issue a "teaching note" to the traffic light coalition, but also to the Union. "But think carefully about the consequences: the destabilization of our democracy is getting closer and closer."

In the shadow of the Marktkirche, Bernd Althusmann is also trying to avert the threat of his second electoral defeat after 2017. Like Merz, the top candidate is also promoting the continued operation of all three nuclear power plants still in operation “until the end of 2024”. Like Merz, he rubs up against the traffic lights, Habeck, the prime ministers' conference, and the "action deficit" in federal politics. "People and companies in the state need help now and not next year or the year after that." Lower Saxony "cannot afford a red-green experiment in this crisis".

Of course, Althusmann gets a lot of applause for this from the perhaps 500 Union sympathizers gathered on Hanover's market square. But the CDU will not be able to buy much of it next Sunday. It's not just the fact that the government is constantly lagging behind the Social Democrats, which makes a change of power in Lower Saxony seem unlikely. The Union also has no realistic option for power in Hanover beyond the mathematically possible, but widely unappreciated, relaunch of the grand coalition.

The FDP, traditional partner of the Lower Saxony Union, is too weak to bring the CDU even close to the state chancellery. On the contrary. Just in time for the last week of the election campaign, the Free Democrats, who were struggling on the edge of the five percent hurdle, started a second vote campaign at the expense of the Union. FDP campaign chief Konstantin Kuhle gave the surcharge for this liberal last-minute maneuver on Twitter: "With all due respect," Kuhle wrote there, "Bernd Althusmann will not become prime minister. If you want to put pressure on the Greens on the subject of energy, you have to vote for the FDP in Lower Saxony instead of giving away your vote to the CDU.”

That sounds a bit mean, but it probably reflects the situation somewhat aptly. Especially since the second party, with whom the Union might like to form a coalition, verbally writes off Althusmann this Friday. "He no longer expects to become prime minister," said Julia Willie, the Green top candidate in Hamburg at the end of her party's election campaign. "The race went well."

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