{"id":5853,"date":"2026-05-16T15:02:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T12:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=5853"},"modified":"2026-05-16T15:02:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T12:02:00","slug":"germany-political-attrition-for-friedrich-murch-calls-for-early-elections-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=5853","title":{"rendered":"Germany: political attrition for Friedrich Murch – Calls for early elections increase"},"content":{"rendered":"

Political pressure on the government of Friedrich Merz<\/strong> is intensifying in Germany<\/strong>, as a new poll shows a strong wave of dissatisfaction with the governing coalition between the CDU\/CSU<\/strong> bloc and the SPD<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

According to the poll by YouGov<\/strong> for Welt am Sonntag, almost half of German citizens believe that the current government should not continue in office, just a few months after the new chancellor took office. <\/p>\n

Strong wave of discontent against the Murch government<\/h2>\n

This poll shows that the 47%<\/strong> of respondents want to end the cooperation between the Christian Democrats<\/strong> and the Social Democrats<\/strong>, while only 30%<\/strong> are in favour of maintaining the coalition government. <\/p>\n

At the same time, a 24%<\/strong> said they were undecided or said they did not know what would be the best outcome for the country. <\/p>\n

Of those calling for a dissolution of the government, the largest share (about 38%)<\/strong> said the solution would be to resort to early elections<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Alongside, a further 9%<\/strong> prefer a minority government under the Christian Democrats<\/strong> of Friedrich Merz<\/strong> and the Christian Socialists<\/strong> of Bavaria under Marcus Zender<\/strong>, without the participation of the SPD<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Stronger reaction in eastern Germany<\/h2>\n

The poll also reflects the sharp differences between the east and west of the country. <\/p>\n

In eastern Germany<\/strong>, 46%<\/strong> of citizens say they want to see the end of the governing coalition, while in the west the corresponding figure is limited to 35%<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Correspondingly, just 22%<\/strong> of residents in the eastern states support the continuation of the government, compared to 31%<\/strong> in western Germany. <\/p>\n

Mertsch himself admits glitches<\/h2>\n

Friedrich Merz<\/strong>, who according to recent polls shows popularity ratings even below 20%<\/strong>, has publicly admitted that his government faces problems both in coordination and in the image it sends out to society. <\/p>\n

“Maybe right now we’re arguing a little too much and not producing enough results. That may be the case,” he said during the 104th German Catholic Congress in the city of Wirtzburg. <\/p>\n

Clashes over economy, energy and social policy<\/h2>\n

The major tensions within the governing coalition are over issues of social security<\/strong>, changes in the labour market<\/strong> and energy policy<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

The management of the economic pressures caused by the war in Iran<\/strong> and the continuing rise in energy costs in Europe is also a new area of confrontation. <\/p>\n

The Merts<\/strong> government is seeking measures to support households and businesses against fuel and energy hikes, but has so far failed to present a plan that meets with common approval at home. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\n Political pressure on Friedrich Murch’s government is intensifying in Germany, as a new poll shows a strong wave of dissatisfaction …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}