A survey by the Ipsos Institute for the Spiegel news magazine found on Wednesday that 48% of respondents agreed fully with the statement that Merz’s government “has failed,” with a further 19% somewhat agreeing.
A survey by the Ipsos Institute for the Spiegel news magazine found on Wednesday that 48% of respondents agreed fully with the statement that Merz’s government “has failed,” with a further 19% somewhat agreeing.
As a Brit, Merz seems sensible when I’ve seen him talk, mostly on the subjects of Ukraine and defence. I know basically nothing about his domestic policies though.
I hope the next German election produces some sort of coalition which prevents an AfD chancellor. Surely Merz is a better chancellor than any AfD chancellor would be.
He’s on the rightwing side of pretty much every culture war issue and likes insulting the German population. Honestly confusing that he seems extremely unwilling to form a coalition with the far right, even though he is doing everything to make them big.
He is a dumb, but extremely confident nepo baby whose only life experience outside of politics is sitting on the board of BlackRock’s German subsidiary. Of course, everything he does can be traced back to a gross misjudgement of his own abilities.
Yet he somehow managed to become Germany’s nominally most powerful person. IDK, neither explanation is quite satisfying.
Because there was no one else left. He failed to win the nomination against Merkel, against Laschet and finally against himself as he was only elected Chancellor in the end in a second round of voting which is unprecedented.
There were plenty of other people, his party’s members just didn’t want them.
Being the best of the worst isn’t a tall order.
I see, thanks for explaining. Maybe his mistake is similar to that of our previous prime minister, Keir Starmer: thinking that emulating right-wing populism will take votes from them. It didn’t work for Starmer and maybe Merz will find the same thing.
I actually think Starmer was a decent man who was trying to do good things in many areas. I think Burnham (our new prime minister - yes it’s hard to keep up with them all) is also good though.
It certainly looks like this is what he’s doing. But I don’t know the guy well enough to be certain whether he’s incompetent or just a cynical bastard; it’s hard to believe that the head of a large and generally successful country doesn’t know what’s what when it comes to power politics - that’s the core skill of any successful politician.
Well he is non-stop complaining about the German workforce (labeling them as lazy and greedy), he is cutting healthcare, workers rights, family benefits etc left and right all while increasing profits for his lobby partners.
I see. Well if Merz is unpopular then I hope Germany finds an alternative to AfD (AfAfD, I suppose…) to rally around, in time for the next election.
Thatcher would be pretty close.
Ideologically… yes. But Thatcher was still a competent politician where Merz is just an egomanical nepo-baby.
Ah. I am sorry to hear it.