Tuesday, November 02, 2021
New CDU leaders wanted
Laschet successors are getting into position
Presidium and federal executive committee of the CDU want to initiate the personnel realignment of the party. Although the first meeting is mainly about the procedure for electing a new chairman, the candidates are already crystallizing.
About five weeks after the heavy defeat of the Union in the federal election, the CDU leadership wants to initiate the personnel realignment. In Berlin, the Presidium and the Federal Executive Committee will discuss the procedure for redefining the party chairmanship on Tuesday. You have the requirement to conduct a member survey for this purpose. A district chairperson’s conference on Saturday voted in favor of this with a large majority. It is questionable whether the first applicants will officially register their candidacies at the special sessions.
Ambitions for the successor to party leader Armin Laschet are said to be in particular the former Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz, the foreign politician Norbert Röttgen and the managing health minister Jens Spahn. The economic politician Carsten Linnemann and Union parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus are also in discussion. These five possible applicants took part in a closed meeting of the North Rhine-Westphalian CDU members of the Bundestag in Bergisch Gladbach on Monday. On the sidelines, the future line-up of the party may have been discussed.
Laschet was only elected chairman in January
Schleswig-Holstein’s prime minister and CDU state chief Daniel Günther demanded in the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” that “women must be strongly represented” in the new leadership. Laschet was only elected chairman last January. After the historically poor result of 24.1 percent in the federal election, he is giving up the chair. A successor determined by a member’s vote would still have to be officially elected by a federal party conference. The entire federal executive committee will be available for election. The CDU aims to complete this process in December or January.
The party wants to be able to act again quickly, because state elections are due to be held in Saarland on March 27th. On May 8th, a new parliament will be elected in Schleswig-Holstein and on May 15th in North Rhine-Westphalia. The CDU provides the prime minister in all three federal states. Defeats there, as just now in the federal government, would massively increase the party’s problems.
General Secretary Paul Ziemiak wants to present a proposal at the meetings of the Presidium and the Federal Executive Committee as to how the member survey on the Presidency – the first in the history of the CDU – should proceed. It must be clarified, for example, whether there should be preliminary rounds of introductions for the candidates. Several variants are conceivable for the survey itself. This ranges from postal voting via an online procedure to classic ballot boxes in district offices. A combination of two or three of these techniques is considered likely to save time.