Candidate for the chairmanship of the German Christian Democratic Union party, Armin Laschet, indicates while participating in a discussion at the party’s headquarters in Berlin on January 8, 2021.
CHRISTIAN MANG / POOL / AFP) (Photo by CHRISTIAN MANG / POOL / AFP via Getty Images
FRANKFURT – The ruling CDU party in Germany has elected Armin Laschet as the new chairman on Saturday, possibly paving the way for him to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor in elections later this year.
Laschet is currently the prime minister of the North Rhine-Westphalia region, the most populous state in the country. He beat rival Friedrich Merz 521 to 466 in a vote forced online due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Born in 1961, he was first elected to the Bundestag (German parliament) in 1994 and his election is seen as a continuation of Merkel’s policies, as he undertook to place the CDU firmly in the “middle of society”. keep.
With him as chairman, the CDU is likely to stay informed and focus on more policy on climate change and environmental issues. He has a strong Catholic background that supports him from Christian circles within the party.
He is a trained lawyer and also worked as a journalist during German reunification between 1986 and 1991. He is considered very liberal and is popular among the immigrant community in his home country.
If he becomes the CDU candidate for chancellor in the September election, he could be open to different coalitions – power-sharing is a recent tradition in German politics.
He pushed the idea of a government with the Liberals, the FDP, in an attempt to win parts of the business camp within the CDU. But he is also seen as a natural fit for a coalition with the Greens, as he is sympathetic to the party and favors environmental issues.
But the CDU’s candidate for chancellor will only be determined in the spring. And it is not certain that the newly elected chairman will automatically move to Merkel’s role. Markus Söder, the very popular Bavarian Prime Minister, and also Jens Spahn, the current Minister of Health, can also take part in the race to lead Europe’s largest economy.
Merkel will step down as leader of the CDU in 2018, and her replacement Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer will retire in February 2020 after a series of communication accidents exposed her as too weak to lead the chancellor.
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