BERLIN (AP) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party on Saturday elected Armin Laschet, the pragmatic governor of Germany’s most populous state, as its new leader – sending a signal of continuity months before an election in which voters will decide who becomes the new. chancellor.
Laschet defeats Friedrich Merz, a Conservative and one-time Merkel rival, at an online meeting of the Christian Democratic Union. Laschet won 521 votes against Merz’s 466. A third candidate, leading legislator Norbert Roettgen, was eliminated in a first round of voting.
The vote on Saturday is not the last word on who the chancellor’s candidate will be in the September 26 election in Germany, but Laschet will run for chancellor, or play a major role in who does. .
Merkel, who has been chancellor since 2005, announced in late 2018 that she would not seek a fifth term. She also retires from the CDU leadership.
The decision ends an 11-month leadership in Germany’s strongest party after outgoing leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who did not impose her authority on the party, announced her resignation. A vote on her successor has been delayed twice due to the coronavirus pandemic.
There was no clear favorite for Saturday’s event, but the election of Merz would have meant at least a symbolic break with the Merkel era. Laschet will now have to work to secure party unity.
Laschet, 59, was elected governor of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2017, a traditional stronghold in the center-left. He rules the region in a coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats, the CDU’s traditional ally on the right, but will likely be able to work fairly smoothly with a more liberal partner. Current polls point to the green environmentalists as a possible key to power in the election.
Laschet on Saturday pointed to the value of continuity and moderation and cited the storms of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump as an example of where deliberate polarization can lead.
“Trust is what keeps us going and what is broken in America,” he told delegates before the vote. “By polarizing, sowing discord and mistrust and lying systematically, a president has destroyed stability and trust.”
“We need to speak clearly, but not polarize,” Laschet said. “We need to be able to integrate, to keep society together.”
He said the party needed “the continuity of success” and “we will only win if we stay strong in the midst of society.”
Laschet said that “there are many people who, above all, like Angela Merkel and only then the CDU.” He added that “we now need this trust as a party” and that “we need to work for this trust.”
Saturday’s result will now be officially confirmed in a postal vote – which is expected to be a formality but required by German law.
The CDU is part of the Union bloc with the Christian Social Union, which is alone in Bavaria, and the two parties will decide together on the center-right candidate for chancellor. The Union currently has a healthy poll, helped by positive reviews of Merkel’s handling of the pandemic.
The leader of the CSU, Markus Soeder, the governor of Bavaria, is widely regarded as a potential candidate after gaining a political position during the pandemic. Some also consider Health Minister Jens Spahn, who supports Laschet and has been elected as one of his deputies, as a possible competitor.
Polls have shown that Soeder’s ratings are higher than those of CDU candidates on Saturday. Laschet received mixed reviews in the pandemic, especially as an outspoken advocate of weakening restrictions after the first phase of last year.
He does not have to expect much from a honeymoon as a CDU leader. This year, six state elections will also be held, the first two in mid-March.
Merkel, now 66, has ruled Germany and Europe through a series of crises since its adoption. She also repeatedly broke with conservative orthodoxy, for example by accelerating Germany’s withdrawal from nuclear energy and ending military service.
Her 2015 decision to allow a large number of migrants led to divisions in the center-right and strengthened the far-right party Alternative for Germany, which entered the German parliament two years later.
Alternative for Germany, co-leader Joerg Meuthen, said Laschet’s election means the CDU “Merkeling will continue” and claims that his party “remains the only Conservative party in Germany.”