It was to be a big congress, over two days, in Hanover. But the deterioration of the health situation decided otherwise. It is therefore ultimately from a distance, behind their screens, that the 1,001 delegates of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) attend the 34and congress of their party, Saturday January 22, and this for only a few hours.
This reduced format should not mislead. Because this congress marks the CDU’s entry into a new phase in its history: after sixteen years at the head of the federal government and a cruel defeat in the general elections, the great party of the German right is now relegated to the opposition, a role she has only had twice since the Second World War (from 1969 to 1982 and then from 1998 to 2005).
To exercise this role to which it is not accustomed, the CDU has chosen a new leader. The latter, for the first time, was appointed by all of the party’s 400,000 or so members and not just by the 1,001 congress delegates, as is traditionally the case. His name is known: it is Friedrich Merz, who obtained 62% of the votes during this unprecedented exercise in partisan democracy. On Saturday, the congress simply has to dub it. The suspense is therefore limited, even if the score he will obtain from the delegates will make it possible to measure the support he has within the party apparatus.
“Incarnate the rupture”
Because Friedrich Merz, within the CDU, does not only have friends. Aged 66, this man with an emaciated face and a brittle style is above all the man of the break with Angela Merkel. Old rival of the latter, to whom he has never forgiven for having ousted him from the presidency of the parliamentary group, in 2002, at the time when he dreamed of being a candidate for the chancellery, this passionate about aviation – he himself has a pilot’s license – then converted to business when he understood that he would never be a minister under Merkel, before returning to the political scene when she decided, in 2018, to leave the head of the CDU.
Twice candidate for the presidency of the party, but each time beaten by faithful of the Chancellor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer in 2018 then Armin Laschet in 2021, Friedrich Merz then turned into an opponent from the inside, defending a line resolutely conservative in terms of values and ultra-liberal in economic matters, far removed from the centrist policy of the Chancellor.
To lead the CDU now in opposition, it is therefore he whom the members have elected. According to political scientist Albrecht von Lucke, editor of the journal Blätter für Deutsche und Internationale Politik, this choice is judicious: “Faced with the new chancellor, [le social-démocrate] Olaf Scholz, who is part of a form of continuity with Merkel, Merz, conversely, can embody the break. With his rhetorical force, he can stand up to Scholz who is himself quite weak. We must never forget that if the SPD [Parti social-démocrate] won the legislative elections only by one point more than the CDU. »
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