Nearly half expect Germany's Merz to be replaced by end of year

Nearly half of Germans expect Chancellor Friedrich Merz to be replaced by the end of the year, according to a YouGov poll.

The survey found 48% of the 1,611 adults surveyed expect Merz will no longer be chancellor by the end of the year, while 31% expect him to remain in office and 21% gave no answer.

Merz, whose approval ratings have tanked in recent months, faces another humbling at the ballot box on Sunday as two eastern states head to the polls, two weeks after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won a resounding victory in Saxony-Anhalt.

The election in Saxony-Anhalt - where the AfD soared to almost 44% of the vote, while Merz's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) collapsed to 17% - prompted serious speculation whether the chancellor might be forced to step down.

Latest polls put the CDU on around 7% in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, dangerously close to the 5% threshold needed to win seats in parliament. If confirmed, this would mark the CDU's worst result in any of Germany's 16 federal states or at the national level since World War II.

In Berlin, The Left is narrowly ahead of the CDU, putting the conservatives at risk of losing the governing mayor's office in the German capital.

Merz, however, has done his best to stave off speculation regarding his future, stressing after the Saxony-Anhalt election that "giving up is not an option for me."