The battle for the presidency of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is on. Two months after its debacle in the legislative elections of September 26 (24.1%, the worst score in its history), the big party of the German right now knows the three candidates who will face each other in the coming weeks to succeed Armin Laschet and embody the main opposition force to the “traffic light” coalition of the future Social Democratic Chancellor (SPD) Olaf Scholz, whose inauguration is scheduled for the week of December 6.
The contenders, who had until Wednesday, November 17 to submit their candidacy, will therefore be three. Two of them, Friedrich Merz and Norbert Röttgen, did not surprise anyone by declaring themselves: beaten by Armin Laschet at the last CDU congress in January, it was logical that they would try their luck again after that. ci announced his resignation following the defeat of the legislative elections. Helge Braun, on the other hand, took everyone by surprise: even the best-informed observers had not imagined that the head of the Federal Chancellery, in other words Angela Merkel’s closest collaborator, would set out to conquer the party that she chaired from 2000 to 2018.
At first glance, Mr. Merz leaves with a head start. At the January congress, he qualified for the second round – unlike Mr. Röttgen, eliminated in the first – and finally narrowly failed against Mr. Laschet (47.2% against 52.8%). At the previous congress, in December 2018, where he was already a candidate, he had come even closer to victory, collecting 48.3% of the vote against Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the designated “runner-up” of Angela Merkel.
After these two failures, Mr. Merz could have given up. But the good results he obtained at the last two congresses are proof, in his eyes, that there is not much missing for the third attempt to be the right one. For this, the former herald of the most conservative wing of the party, who has just returned to the Bundestag after spending twelve years in the business world, intends to play the rally card.
“With me, there will be no right turn within the CDU”, he thus promised, Tuesday, giving the name of the one of whom he would make his secretary general in case of victory: Mario Czaja, a 46-year-old deputy who has just won the popular constituency of Berlin-Marzahn-Hellersdorf, held by the far left since 1990.
Disagreement around Angela Merkel
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