Sunday January 24th 2021
"The natural candidate for chancellor"
For Spahn, Laschet is ahead on the K question
The decision as to who will stand as candidate for chancellor for the Union should be made in March at the earliest. But the discussions are already starting now. Laschet or Söder? So far, the CSU boss has not publicly claimed the office. But that can still change.
A week after the election of the new CDU chairman Armin Laschet, his deputy Jens Spahn called the party leader a natural candidate for chancellor. "Armin Laschet leads our CDU, and he is the natural candidate for Chancellor," said the Federal Minister of Health of "Bild am Sonntag".
The North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Laschet and CSU chief Markus Söder had committed to not electing the joint candidate for chancellor from both parties until after the state elections in March. Both are considered candidates, although the Bavarian Prime Minister Söder has not yet publicly claimed the office.
Spahn had recently rejected reports that he was exploring his own chances as a candidate for chancellor in the Union. Now he said: "I ran for the CDU chairmanship in 2018. I was ready to take on responsibility, with everything that follows from it. Today I am concentrating on overcoming the greatest health crisis in the history of the Federal Republic."
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer emerged victorious from the election of the CDU chairman at the time. Her successor was elected a week ago. Spahn had supported Laschet and was elected as his deputy at the digital party congress, albeit with poor results.
Söder relies on a decision in the spring
There had been a long tug-of-war in the Union over the procedure for the candidate freelance. CDU Vice Volker Bouffier, for example, had urged a quick decision as soon as possible after the election of the new party chairman. Söder, on the other hand, had long been betting on a late decision in the spring. Laschet also recently positioned itself in this way, sometimes referring to March and sometimes April.
On March 14th there are important state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, which mark the beginning of the super election year with the federal election on September 26th as the highlight. Both elections are not easy for the CDU. Laschet and Söder have each declared that they do not want to make the K question dependent on the CDU's performance in these state elections. Laschet had also told the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung": "We both know that opinion polls are important, but by no means the only basis for such decisions." The decisive factor is "who has the greatest chance of winning the election for the Union".
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