The German ruling party CDU wants to elect its new chairman already on April 25, at an extraordinary party congress. The new party chairman must also become the top candidate at the parliamentary elections in a year and a half and thereby also the successor to Angela Merkel as Chancellor.
Normally, the CDU would only choose a new chairman in December. But there has been an ongoing debate within the party about the difficult cooperation with the Social Democratic SPD. Merkel’s center-left coalition partner is being ideologically pulled to the left by the rise of the Greens and The Left, while at the right wing of the CDU the far-right AfD is also growing significantly.
Within the CDU, several prominent figures have not hidden their disagreement with Merkel’s choice for her own successor and in recent months openly criticized the party chairman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who was elected last year.
Her political leadership came back on the agenda at the beginning of this month after the recent political crisis in Thuringia. The Thuringian CDU members went against the party line by refusing to cooperate with the far-right AfD. Chairman Kramp-Karrenbauer was unable to control her party colleagues in the East German state and announced that she would step down eventually.
But partly due to the historic defeat in the state elections last Sunday in Hamburg, the party does not want to wait too long, German media report. In Hamburg, the party dropped to third place, with barely thirteen percent of the votes. The CDU does not benefit from a months-long struggle over the succession of AKK and Merkel.
Over the past two weeks, the CDU hoped to reach a team solution behind the scenes, where the possible candidates for the chairmanship would agree on the division of party functions without a contested election. That seems not to have succeeded.
So far, the possible candidates for the CDU chairmanship are Friedrich Merz (64), Armin Laschet (58), Norbert Röttgen (54), and Jens Spahn (39). The conservative Merz is considered the man who can keep the competition from the far-right AfD at bay. However, he has not been politically active in the past 10 years. He also does not seem to be the person who can attract many people as a top candidate.
That role is more suited for Laschet (58), Minister-President of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He belongs to the liberal wing of the CDU and has always supported Merkel’s course. That is also his disadvantage in the open party battle over the course: will the CDU move more to the conservative-right or will the party remain moderately centrist?
Röttgen, former Environment Minister, has a lot of international experience as chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Bundestag. So far, he is the only one who has stated that he wants to be both chairman and top candidate. Spahn, the ambitious Minister of Health, is conservative like Merz and an opponent of Merkel’s centrist course.