By Andreas Rinke
BERLIN, Oct 1 (Reuters) – Hendrik Wuest, the German state premier often seen as a possible replacement for struggling Chancellor Friedrich Merz, dismisses the leadership talk but his profile has risen as the ruling conservatives deal with their worst-ever election loss.
This week, only days after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) topped a state election for the second time in two weeks, Wuest took a business delegation on a three-day visit to Turkey, where he met President Tayyip Erdogan.
Foreign visits by the premiers of large German states are relatively common and Wuest’s state of North Rhine-Westphalia has been home to Germany’s largest Turkish population since the first Turks arrived as “guest workers” in Germany in the 1960s.
But the timing of the trip, underlining Wuest’s status as a major player in German politics while Merz was fighting for his political life and strains in the coalition have re-emerged, fuelled speculation about a possible change of chancellor.
Wuest and officials who work with him have repeatedly denied he has any interest in replacing Merz under current circumstances.
He was one of eight conservative state premiers who publicly backed the chancellor in the run-up to the September 20 election in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the AfD again topped the election after winning in Saxony-Anhalt two weeks earlier.
However, the results underlined how far voters have turned against Merz, who vowed to carry on despite the worst defeat ever inflicted on his Christian Democrats (CDU), who failed to pass the threshold to enter parliament in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Widely blamed for failing to deliver on promised economic reforms and hampered by a series of communications missteps that have contributed to perceptions of being out of touch with worries over eroding living standards, the chancellor’s approval ratings have fallen to record lows.
An opinion poll this week by the Forsa polling institute showed only 11% approved of the job he was doing and even among his own party supporters, only 39% were satisfied.
Wuest, by contrast, is the third most popular politician in the country behind Social Democrat (SPD) Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and Baden-Wuerttemberg state premier Cem Ozdemir, from the Greens, according to ilium, a data analysis service.
UNDER SCRUTINY
Germany’s constitutional system does not make it easy to replace a sitting chancellor. Any change would also not solve deep-seated problems, ranging from an ageing population and war on its doorstep in Ukraine to the erosion of its industrial base which has been fast losing ground to China.
“The problems — like having to push through unpopular austerity measures in the social security systems with a difficult coalition partner, the SPD, which is also feeling uncertain — would still be there,” said one senior CDU politician.
Opinion polls suggest Wuest, whose state goes to the polls next April, could retain power with his Green coalition partners, potentially putting him in position to take the conservatives into the next federal election due in 2029.
He has struck a markedly different tone from the instinctively pro-business, fiscal conservative Merz who has himself admitted widespread perceptions that his party did not appear to care enough about “social justice”.
Wuest has previously criticised the government’s messaging on economic reforms, which several senior figures in the party see as excessively technocratic.
“It is not enough simply to keep talking about the need to push through the agreed reforms, as some members of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group and the Chancellor emphasise,” said another conservative state premier.
At a time when the success of the AfD has fed alarm among many people with a migrant background and led to a tougher stance on immigration from the government, Wuest made a clear break with the AfD’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and said it was inadmissible to allow anyone to feel personally threatened.
“This makes our task as a society to combat this resentment and discrimination all the more important,” he said.
While supporting the idea that refugees from war-torn countries like Syria could normally return to their countries once peace returned, he noted the positive contribution of workers from countries like Turkey at a time when Germany has sought to attract skilled workers.
“We’ll manage to make the distinction,” he said.
(Writing by James MackenzieEditing by Alexandra Hudson)
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