The decline of the CDU has now continued for 13 elections in a row. Everyone knows that the problem lies in Berlin. They say: "The fish stinks on the head first." And the problem has a name: Angela Merkel.
Every election with new historical lows for the CDU has nothing to do with regional peculiarities, but contains a consistent message: A single vote of no confidence in the chancellor and the governing coalition in Berlin, which no one rightly dares to call big anymore.
GroKo is just the abbreviation for abysmal coalition. If the CDU doesn't finally come to its senses, it faces the same path that the SPD took towards insignificance.
Merkel has long since lost contact with the country and its people. Everywhere you can hear and see how great the dissatisfaction with them personally is. She has been in office for far too long and should have left the chancellor's office at the latest when her party chairmanship came to an end, as she herself has always seen and explained.
Now she clings to her broken word and is glued to her chair. They lack the authority to lead clearly and to determine politics with clear announcements.
In the meantime, their passivity is even damaging Germany's foreign policy, which is being made ridiculous by the dispute over Syria policy carried out on the open Turkish stage by Heiko Maas, who plays Foreign Minister, with Defense Minister and CDU Chairwoman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. Ms. Merkel acts as if none of this concerns her. She cannot lead.
She looks like she's not there anymore. The CDU should not find it difficult to take the decisive step towards their fall. Better today than tomorrow an end with only a little terror than a terror to the bitter end.
The CDU suffers one loss of trust after another. Merkel's left-green shift in coordinates has made the CDU weaker and weaker and the AfD stronger.
The inconclusive dallying is also becoming clear with another topic. After months of discussion, there is a result on the basic pension after a long period of indecisiveness and lack of leadership. But Merkel and her government are only wafting over the country like a huge veil of fog. That might fit the season, but it's taking far too long.
Germany, Europe and the world cannot afford such a government one day longer. Nobody has ever been so politically exhausted as Mrs. Merkel. She should do the country one last service: if she can't bring herself to do it either, the CDU must make her understand that she's no longer working. Merkel herself provides the best historical example of this. She did the same with Helmut Kohl two decades ago.
The author is the managing director of OBO Bettermann and a BILANZ columnist.
