00:00Well, the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his party, the CDU, Conservatives in Germany
00:05seem to be in an increasingly perilous position. The country rocked by a shock defection of support
00:14that really has exposed what is going on in Germany right now, because this is a country
00:20where unemployment recently rose to its highest level in 12 years, where unemployment recently
00:26hit over 3 million. A recent survey showing that the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz,
00:33now possibly the most unpopular head of government in the world, which takes some doing.
00:37And in the national polls, you can see the AFD's lead seems to be increasing. They're edging up
00:43towards 30%, while the Conservatives down to towards 20%. And so little wonder then really
00:52that there's even speculation that Merz could be ousted by the end of this year. Just 13%,
01:01think about that, just 13% of Germans now satisfied with the performance of their Chancellor and a
01:10prominent CDU official there speaking anonymously that Merz basically is done for. Now, he is trying
01:20to mount something of a comeback. And you can see there he's pressing his team, the Cabinet,
01:27for what being described as pro-growth reforms, pushing clearly to try and turn the situation
01:35around. However, the situation is getting more and more serious for the Conservatives in Germany ahead
01:41of elections later this year. Because what you've seen in Germany for many, many years
01:45is the outright refusal of the other parties to work with the AFD in any way at all. They've placed
01:52this so-called firewall around the party, absolute refusal to work with them. But with elections
01:58coming up in Saxony-Arnholt, you can see here how much this firewall is now being tested.
02:04Because it was revealed that a currently serving CDU official was planning to not only vote for the
02:09AFD in the state elections in September, but donated as well. And then it emerges that actually this was
02:16a CDU Conservative mayor who is now actually backing the AFD. And you can see the quote there saying,
02:27I want the AFD to become so strong in the Saxony-Arnholt election that it can govern alone. And that
02:34the aim is for his party to wake up and tear down that firewall. Now, the reason that this is
02:42so
02:43critical is because the Saxony-Arnholt election is an election where you can see the AFDs at Leeds
02:49has just grown and grown. They're on between 41 and 43 percent, almost twice, almost double the level
02:56of support of the Conservatives. And that could mean, potentially, depending on how this all works out,
03:02that the AFD could actually govern there alone without needing any other alliances.
03:09So that has absolutely rocked German politics. Please do let me know your thoughts, though, on that
03:15in the comments below. Please do whack this video a quick thumbs up. And of course, as ever, cheers for
03:19watching.
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