Germany's Merz vows to take on ascendant far-right AfD

BERLIN: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed Monday to take on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of five state elections next year as the party surges in the polls.

The AfD scored a record 20.8% in a general election in February, and its ratings have since continued to rise, with many surveys now putting it as the biggest party.

Merz said the AfD would be the "main opponent" of his conservative CDU/CSU alliance at state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Berlin in 2026.

‘Very clearly and explicitly’

"We will now also be very clear and very explicit about where the AfD stands in terms of content, and we will distance ourselves from them very clearly and explicitly," he said after a party conference in Berlin.

In the two former East German states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the AfD is currently projected to win by a clear margin.

This has led some regional CDU officials to call for the party to drop its opposition to forming political alliances with the far right.

‘Wants a different country’ 

But Merz insisted that his party would not collaborate with the AfD, some of whose branches have been declared right-wing extremist by German intelligence services.

"This party has declared its intention to destroy the CDU. It wants a different country," Merz said.

"It is not just details that separate us. We are separated from the AfD by fundamental issues and fundamental political convictions."

‘Wants to destroy us’

Referring to offers of collaboration from the party, Merz said, "the hand that the AfD repeatedly extends is in reality a hand that wants to destroy us".

The AfD last year became the first far-right party to win a regional election in Germany since the Nazis, in the eastern state of Thuringia.

One survey for the Bild newspaper on Sunday put the AfD at 27% of voting intentions at the national level, ahead of Merz's CDU/CSU at 25%.

Germany's mainstream political parties have long maintained a "firewall" against cooperation with the AfD.