Party conference of the CDU: Merz scares Merkel and rebuilds vigorously

It is almost certain that Merz will become party leader tomorrow. But he needs young people in the committees, otherwise the renewal will not work. The elections will show whether the incumbents in the CDU are willing to make room.

Carsten Linnemann wants to get started. “I don’t even know if I can tell all of this here,” he briefly had doubts as to whether the future office layout of the CDU leadership in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus might be too internal to explain to the capital’s press gathered in the video chat ?

What. “I’ll just go on talking now,” Linnemann decides aloud for himself after a nanosecond of concerns, after all it’s about convincing the critical journalists of the success of a project that is understood even within the party as a “gigantic task” with a thoroughly uncertain outcome . “Everyone here knows what the hour has come,” says Linnemann, who gave up the presidency of the SME and Economic Union in November and wants to be elected one of four new deputy party leaders at the digital party conference on Saturday. Only Silvia Breher from Lower Saxony should remain from the old team.

Friedrich Merz, as the future CDU chairman, is planning nothing less than a general overhaul of the CDU management bodies, and the party congress should set the course for this with his vote. What was probably not quite as planned was that this party congress marks the end of the Angela Merkel era in a way that is more drastic than would be fitting for the old CDU. The long-serving Chancellor is not only now not honorary chairwoman of the party, which she headed for 18 years. She obviously has no intention of ever standing for election. The result could be too embarrassing, so it is said behind the scenes. How deep the break goes can be seen from the fact that Merkel even canceled the invitation to a meal with Merz.

In addition to Merkel’s successor, Berlin’s former health senator Mario Czaja is also up for election at the party conference as the new general secretary and Christina Stumpp as his deputy – a post that doesn’t even exist yet. In addition, as deputy party leaders Linnemann, Breher, as well as Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer, Karin Prien, Minister of Education from Schleswig-Holstein, and the deputy parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Andreas Jung.

Personally, things are going “very well”

The problems they will have to address in their new office: a sensationally poor result for the federal elections for the Union with 24.1 percent, a continuing decline in membership – last year alone by 15,000 people – an image as a divided party in which agreements are not reliable are, confidentiality is abused, in which the struggle is not for positions, but for posts. The average party member is 60, the current policy statement is 15 years old, and every few weeks Hans-Georg Maaßen posts a new faux pas on Twitter. As a party, you can certainly present yourself as even less attractive than the CDU is currently doing, but it would take some effort.

The party presumably didn’t want the break with Merkel, but it wants and needs a fresh start, and beginning with an almost complete replacement of the leadership team can’t be that wrong. If the posts are then reassigned, the responsibilities should be clearly defined. “As I understand it, Ms. Stumpp concentrates very much on the municipal issue,” explains Linnemann. An office for the program and policy process will be set up for himself, and Mario Czaja will, among other things, restore the ability to campaign. According to his feeling, things are going “very well on a human level” between the actors.

On the other hand, it is more controversial at the level of the presidium and board of directors. The large CDU federal executive board – one remembers – is the body from whose confidential meetings last year as in the live ticker internals were pierced. For the future, Friedrich Merz is planning meetings for the seven-member executive committee, in which the mobile phones are outside in a charging station.

All state associations, all associations and special organizations of the party want to see themselves represented, if not in the executive committee, then at least in the federal executive committee, so that in the run-up to the party congress a lot of attention is paid to proportional representation and power structures.

The established want to keep their jobs

North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, has a large number of members and is therefore quickly overrepresented, which other state associations try to prevent. Although there are 26 seats available for elected representatives on the board, 38 Christian Democrats are applying. The necessary cultural change would also be easier to achieve here if enough new minds moved into the committees. But there are far more established players at this level who are interested in keeping their jobs.

How secure the candidates feel in the race can be seen in the tendency to see how much effort they put into producing their introductory video for tomorrow’s election. Anyone who, like Karl-Josef Laumann, starts the race as NRW Minister of Health and Chairman of the socio-political wing CDA, quickly poses in front of an Adenauer portrait for the video. Camera on, 1:23 on the need for the CDU to also be attractive to skilled workers, camera off. According to this video, there are no doubts about Laumann’s re-election to the presidency.

Established people, who may not be 100% sure, have at least chosen a more lively background for their monologue – such as a wide river or a pedestrian zone. Nevertheless, the message in the subtext is: “Dear delegates, you all know me”. And then there are those who know they must fight. The 32-year-old Ronja Kemmer from Ulm, for example, who wants to move into the presidency for the Junge Union. But tomorrow, eight people will be trying to get the seven seats for party representatives who do not sit on the Presidium due to their position.

Kemmer’s competitors are called Spahn, Althusmann, Laumann, Haseloff and don’t make the race look promising for the unknown MP. Especially since the chair of the Women’s Union, Annette Widmann-Mauz, is another candidate from Baden-Württemberg. Instead of Kemmer, the Junge Union could also have put up Wiebke Winter from Bremen, who has already made a name for herself through the Climate Union and as a board member. But one hears that the JU was not ready for this. Internal power interests probably spoke against it.

Offspring with desire but without a lobby

One of the decisive factors for the question of whether the CDU will make a comeback as a people’s party will be how willing the mid-level faculty in particular, but also the state associations, will be to switch from security and retention of power to substantive debates and thinking for the party. Whether the CDU is really willing to give space to the young, the new, who want to but have no lobby, at the level of power.

How far the party has come along this path, after they want to have the current failure in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus ruthlessly dissected, can perhaps be seen from the election results of the party congress. In any case, Carsten Linnemann is looking forward to the substantive debate: “We don’t have to become more conservative or more right-wing, we have to raise our profile.” He had already called for something similar when Merkel was still party leader. Now his fellow party members can ensure that there really is something going on in the program and policy office.

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