Friday 17th December 2021
Clear the way to the party chairmanship
Merz wins CDU membership decision
Friedrich Merz won the membership of the CDU in Germany. The 66-year-old prevailed with 62.1 percent of the vote. Officially, the new chairman has to be one of the 1001 delegates of a digital party congress on 21./22. January to be elected. The choice must then be confirmed by postal vote.
For the first time in the history of the CDU, the party members were able to make a preliminary decision on the party chairmanship. According to the CDU, almost two thirds of the 400,000 members took part in the survey on Thursday. According to information from the CDU, exactly 248,360 members took part – 64.3 percent of all party book owners.
The three applicants are considered to be representatives of different directions in the CDU. Ex-Union faction leader Merz is still considered a darling of the conservatives and the business wing. His supporters hope that he will bring him back to a clear, conservative profile that was missing from the then Chancellor and CDU leader Angela Merkel.
The new CDU chairman has numerous tasks. It is to be expected that he will reposition the Adenauerhaus, the party headquarters. This should lay the foundation for work in the opposition within the party. In addition to the personnel reorganization of the entire party leadership at the online party congress in January, one of the most important tasks of the new party leader is likely to include profiling the content of the CDU. Internally, too, in connection with the election campaign, it was criticized that the party seemed emaciated in terms of content after Merkel’s 16 years in the Chancellery.