The Christian Democratic Party will elect mid-December his new leader. In the running, the very conservative Friedrich Merz, the centrist Norbert Röttgen, and a last minute candidate: Helge Braun, one of Angela Merkel’s closest collaborators.
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The battle for the presidency of the Christian-Democrat Union (CDU) is launched. Two months after his debacle in the legislative elections of September 26 (24.1%, the worst score of his history), the great party of the German right now knows the three candidates who will compete in the weeks to come to succeed Armin Leschet and embody the main opposition force at the “Tricolore fire” coalition of the Future Social Democrat (SPD) Olaf Scholz, whose investiture is scheduled in the week of December 6th.
The contenders, which had until Wednesday, November 17 to apply, will be three. Two of them, Friedrich Merz and Norbert Röttgen, have surprised anyone by declaring himself: Battus by Armin Laschet at the last Congress of the CDU, in January, it was logical that they try their luck again after that He had announced his resignation following the defeat of the legislative. Helge Braun, on the other hand, took everyone from the short: even the best informed observers had not imagined that the head of the Federal Chancellery, in other words the nearest collaborator of Angela Merkel, would start to conquer the party that it presided over 2000 to 2018.
At first glance, Mr. Merz goes with a head start. At the January Congress, he qualified for the second round – Unlike Mr. Röttgen, eliminated from the first -, and finally failed with Mr. Laschet (47.2% compared to 52.8%). In the previous congress, in December 2018, where he was already a candidate, it was even closer to the victory, collecting 48.3% of the votes against Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the designated “Dauphine” of Angela Merkel.
After these two failures, Mr. Merz could have renounce. But the good results he obtained in the last two congresses are the proof, in his eyes, that he does not miss much for the third attempt to be the right one. For this, the old herald of the party’s most conservative wing, who has just returned to the Bundestag after spending twelve in the business world, hears to play the gathering card.
“With me, there will be no turn right within the CDU,” he said, Tuesday, giving the name of the one he would do his secretary general in case of victory : Mario Czaja, a 46-year-old member who has just won the popular district of Berlin-Marzahn-Hellersdorf, owned by the far left since 1990.
Disagree around Angela Merkel
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