BERLIN (AP) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party elects a new leader this weekend, a decision that will help shape German voters’ choice of her successor at the helm of the European Union’s largest economy after her term of 16 years.
Merkel, now 66, has run Germany and Europe through a series of crises since its adoption in 2005. But she said more than two years ago that she was not going to get a fifth term as chancellor.
Now her party in the Christian Democratic Union is looking for its second new leader since she ended the role in 2018. The person will either run as chancellor in the election on September 26 in Germany, or have a major role in the candidate.
Current leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has announced her resignation last February after she did not enforce her authority on the party. The decision on her successor has been repeatedly delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. Finally, the CDU decides to hold an online meeting this weekend.
Delegates from Germany’s strongest party can choose on Saturday between three main candidates who differ greatly, at least in style. There is no clear favorite.
Friedrich Merz (65) would mark a break from the Merkel era. The party dominated the center and ended military service, allowing same-sex marriage, and allowing a large number of migrants, among others.
He has a more traditional conservative and pro-business image, and recently wrote in Der Spiegel magazine that ‘the CDU, whether it wants to or not, should emerge from the shadow of Angela Merkel’.
Merz said he wanted to give a “political home” to disillusioned conservatives, but would not move “one millimeter” to the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
This is Merz’s second bid for party leadership after losing last time with Kramp-Karrenbauer, who is seen as Merkel’s preferred candidate. He led the center-right group in parliament from 2000 to 2002, when Merkel fired him, leaving parliament in 2009 – later practicing as a lawyer and chairing the board of the German branch BlackRock , investment manager.
Merz has tried to portray his decade out of politics as a strong point, but he has no experience of government. Armin Laschet, the governor of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, presents it.
Laschet, 59, is a more liberal figure who was elected governor in 2017 in a traditional center-left stronghold, and is likely to be seen as continuing Merkel’s centrist approach. In a debate among candidates last week, he said: “What I bring is the government’s experience, the leadership of a great state, the balancing of different interests and – it may not do any harm to a CDU leader. – to win an election. “
The third contender, Norbert Roettgen, lost the 2012 state election in North Rhine-Westphalia. Merkel subsequently fired him as Germany’s environment minister. Roettgen, 55, says he learned from the experience. He declared himself a candidate for the ‘modern center’ emphasizing the fight against climate change.
Roettgen, now chairman of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, has long been seen as an outsider, but surveys have shown he is gaining ground among CDU supporters. He suggested last week that he would be a tasty alternative for fans of both Merz and Laschet.
“I’m not in one camp,” he said. “I stand for everyone and I think those who do not vote for me will be able to live with me and accept me if I am elected.”
Laschet is the only candidate who has had to make big decisions in the coronavirus pandemic. This is a strong and a weak point: it raised his profile, but he received mixed reviews, especially as an outspoken proponent of weakening restrictions after the first phase of the pandemic.
The CDU as a whole has benefited from the coronavirus crisis, and has made strong progress in an unusual election year thanks to good reviews for the leadership of Merkel’s pandemic. Whether any of these candidates can pass the ratings after the election is uncertain. Saturday’s ruling will not be the last word on the candidate center chancellor.
This is partly because the CDU is part of the Union bloc, which also includes its sister party, the Christian Social Union, which is only in Bavaria. The two parties will decide together who they want to use for Merkel, although no timetable has been set.
CSU leader Markus Soeder himself is considered a potential candidate. The Bavarian governor became stature during the pandemic as a strong supporter of harsh restrictions to curb the coronavirus, and his polling limits exceed those of the CDU candidates.
And some see Health Minister Jens Spahn, who will become the CDU’s deputy leader under Laschet, as a possible rival.
Whoever is a candidate will be Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, the candidate of the struggling center-left Social Democrats, currently Merkel’s junior coalition partner, as well as a candidate of the environmentalists Greens, who are planning their first candidate for the chancellery, encounter.
The CDU leader will be elected by 1,001 delegates. If no candidate wins a majority, there will be a run-off. According to German law, the online result must be confirmed by a postal vote, the result of which is expected on 22 January.
The plan is that only Saturday’s winning candidate will be on the ballot.
Unity “is the top priority for everyone”, the outgoing leader, Kramp-Karrenbauer, told the news agency dpa. “And that’s my big request to the party, too.”