Friday 15th January 2021
Farewell speech from AKK
The last half hour is the hardest
By Hubertus Volmer
In a short speech at the CDU party conference, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said goodbye to the CDU chairmanship. The message: If her successor gambled it away, it wasn't her fault.
As in December 2018 in Hamburg, Hesse's Prime Minister Volker Bouffier will give the laudatory speech for the outgoing chairwoman at the digital party conference of the CDU. Only there is no applause, no standing ovations, no audience in the hall. It's probably better that way, then it'll be over sooner. For Annette Kramp-Karrenbauer, the last half an hour is probably the hardest.
Bouffier is the funeral orator who reminds of the beautiful moments. Four years ago, for example, when AKK – at that time still as Prime Minister of Saarland – "pushed the Schulz train to the siding". At that time, Kramp-Karrenbauer had impressively and surprisingly won a state election and thus laid the foundation for electoral success in Schleswig-Holstein, North Rhine-Westphalia and finally also in the federal government. Bouffier recalls February 2018, when Kramp-Karrenbauer was elected Secretary General with 99 percent. With an expression on her face that shows a mixture of emotion and strength of nerves, she then has to endure five more thanks. Then it's done.
The CDU has also made it, the farewell to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is complete. The next item on the agenda, Angela Merkel's greeting, will deal with other issues. The Chancellor does not give her successor in the party leadership a warm word. She may be thinking of her political legacy and worried that it could be gambled away tomorrow, Saturday. Then their successor will be elected.
"The CDU is ready"
Kramp-Karrenbauer had to look after her own political legacy. In her farewell speech, before Bouffier's appearance, she also recalls the importance of her election success in Saarland, of her "listening tour" that she carried out as Secretary General, of the workshop talk she initiated on migration, which laid the foundation for the reconciliation between the CDU and CSU – probably her most important, almost forgotten achievement. She reads with great concentration, and it seems difficult for her to say goodbye. She admits errors in dealing with the climate issue, also in the answer to the destruction video by Youtuber Rezo – but these errors have been corrected, as Kramp-Karrenbauer describes. "The programmatic gaps have been closed. Campaigning and digital communication have improved significantly. The CDU is ready for the election year 2021." In other words, if my successor gambled it away, it wasn't me.
Why in the world did Kramp-Karrenbauer announce her resignation almost a year ago? She says it at the end of her speech. "It wasn't just a regional question. It was about the soul of our party."
Specifically, it was about the election of an FDP politician in the Thuringian state parliament as Prime Minister by the CDU – with the votes of the AfD, without which this majority would not have existed. "I felt at the time that as the party leader I no longer had enough authority and support to get our party through this difficult phase unscathed. I have therefore decided not to run as a candidate for chancellor and pave the way for a new chairman."
The old rules no longer apply
At that time, in another time, it was still considered agreed that the CDU chairwoman would also be the candidate for chancellor of the Union parties. Now that three men from North Rhine-Westphalia want to inherit it, that is no longer true, strangely enough. Regardless of who is elected tomorrow, Laschet, Merz or Röttgen: From day one he will have to fight for this candidacy – against Markus Söder, against Jens Spahn, maybe against others, for example Laschet, Merz or Röttgen, depending on the situation.
So was AKK's resignation pointless? One can certainly get this idea, especially since the conflicts that provoked it have still not been resolved. Kramp-Karrenbauer sees it differently, at least she says so. "This step was difficult. But it was considered carefully and it was right."
Then she apologizes for not always living up to your expectations and my own demands. But she also says: "Our route turned out differently and was shorter than planned and hoped for. But it too is part of the history and development of our party and perhaps not the worst."
At the end she calls for all CDU members to support the new chairman. If that works out as well as she does, then her resignation would have been completely pointless.
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