Regierung: Zwei Wahlen und das Schicksal der Koalition: Das steht für Merz, Bas und Klingbeil auf dem Spiel

Friedrich Merz is consolidating the CDU leadership ahead of the looming possibility of bad news arriving Sunday evening. At 5 PM, the CDU executive, the highest governing body of the party, convenes at the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus. An hour later, the first prognostications for the Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern elections are published on television. The electoral results in those two federal states have the potential to shake the red-black coalition.

In recent days and weeks, discussions have been ongoing within the CDU about the possible dismissal of Chancellor Merz. Similarly, rumors of a coup against the chairpersons Bärbel Bas and Lars Klingbeil have persisted in the SPD. The situation in both parties seemed to stabilize recently, but that tranquility is illusory. The Handelsblatt reveals what Merz, Bas, and Klingbeil need to fear on election night.

While the CDU trails the left-leaning party by a narrow margin in Berlin's latest polls, the party risks a historic downfall in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The CDU's last poll there placed it at six percent. This represents the CDU's worst result in a Landtag election in the history of the Federal Republic – less than the nine percent the party achieved in Bremen in 1951.