A a fierce battle is raging between two leading German politicians over who should be the next successor to Angela Merkel’s successor as chancellor candidate, with the Conservative alliance under pressure to choose between a consensus player with a reputation as pliability or a charismatic political all-rounder in the populist form.
After attending a meeting of the CDU / CSU’s parliamentary faction on Tuesday afternoon, rivals Armin Laschet and Markus Söder came forward to say that the talks were productive and that they hoped that by the end of the week there would be a decision will be.
The camps behind Laschet, the chairman of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and leader of North Rhine-Westphalia, and Söder, the Bavarian state leader and head of the CDU’s sister party, the Christian Social Union, are so divided over the question of whether the disputed conservative alliance will be able to restore its unity in time for the September elections.
There has been much criticism that the rivalry is diverting too much attention from the fight against the pandemic, now in its third wave.
Laschet, a 60-year-old Catholic boy from Aachen, received the formal support of CDU regional leaders as chancellor candidate on Monday. As the leader of the dominant party in the alliance, which must have a compelling reason to let the smaller sister party steal the spotlight, he ultimately has the greater chance of being elected.
But Söder, a 54-year-old Protestant boy from a Nuremberg building project who announced his candidacy on Sunday, has the support of about 70 CDU MPs out of 245. He is the most popular among CDU voters and the person is the German population in general is most eager to see as the successor to Merkel.
According to a recent poll by YouGov, only 12% of Germans were in favor of Laschet as chancellor candidate, compared to 46% for Söder.
Laschet was elected the new chairman of the CDU in a low ballot in January after the resignation of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who was Merkel’s personal choice but could not meet the challenge. But the subsequent historically low election results for the CDU during regional elections in Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg, and Laschet’s alleged indecision during the pandemic, reflected him badly. His recent proposal for a so-called “bridge lock” to stretch the time gap between the current rise in coronavirus infections and when the effect of vaccines will begin is widely mocked.
On the other hand, Söder’s crony management without any nonsense, in which he often continued with the restrictions of the closing date as the federal government appears to be, deserved praise – even though Bavaria did not fare better in the crisis than elsewhere. He is also proficient in drafting headlines, including announcing last week an agreement to purchase 250 million doses of Russian vaccine Sputnik V, which has not yet been officially approved.
Söder said this week that his greater popularity must be decisive. “The real crisis would be if we performed better than the election.” The alliance currently has less than 30% in the polls. “Our goal should be to achieve a much better result than that … we have the potential to secure 35 plus,” he said.
Paul Ziemiak, the CDU’s general secretary, said: “Armin Laschet has broad support … it’s about the ability to lead, the ability to bring people together in a team; it’s about the power to integrate the whole of society … and Laschet is the one who can do it best. ”
The only two German general elections in which a chancellor candidate from the CSU appeared did not go in the Bavarian party’s favor. Franz Josef Strauss received 44.5% of the vote in 1980, but that was not enough to overthrow Helmut Schmidt’s coalition government. Twenty-two years later, the battle between Edmund Stoiber and the Social Democrats’ Gerhard Schröder ended in a draw of 38.5%, but the current coalition could not be withdrawn.
The German media cites the public warfare between Laschet and Söder as the most important power struggle of the year, a political duel that threatens the parties’ delicate symbiosis. It can, after all, decide who takes the reins of Europe’s largest economy after nearly 16 years of Merkel. More importantly, in most German minds, the winning person will have to try to run the country, including its improved economy and society, in a stable and prosperous era after the Covid 19.
Both men have said they want a decision made before Pentecost bank weekend in May. But the alliance is under pressure to make its direction clear, with the Greens, its biggest rival, announcing on Monday which of its two leaders is a candidate.
Asked on Tuesday whether she was concerned that the pair’s rivalry could damage the block and lead to the cancellation being lost, Merkel made it clear that she did not intend to intervene. “I wanted, wanted and will stick to it,” she said.