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Start of the CDU party congress: Söder advertises, Merkel prints, Kramp-Karrenbauer leaves

2021-01-15T21:01:49.032Z


The CDU is nervous about the election of the new chairman. And then CSU boss Söder, who the citizens can most likely imagine as the successor of Chancellor Merkel, speaks at the start of the party congress. Five observations.


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Chairwoman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer: Nobody is carefree here

Photo: Pool / Getty Images

There are only a few hours left.

If everything goes according to plan, the CDU will have a new chairman on Saturday afternoon.

Finally, eleven months after party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced her departure.

If the CDU were to hold its party congress as usual, you could feel the nervousness in the hall, in the rows of delegates, up on the podium, on the way to the toilet.

But the tense mood among the Christian Democrats can be felt this Friday evening even as part of this strange digital party conference.

His hashtag is #wegenmorgen: Friedrich Merz, Armin Laschet or Norbert Röttgen - who will it?

In the gigantic studio at the Berlin trade fair, General Secretary Paul Ziemiak is as tidy as possible, in the conference presidium one tries again and again to make little jokes, there are lots of colorful films and funky music.

But nobody is carefree here.

So much for the CDU depends on the personnel decision on Saturday: Keep it up with Laschet, a break with Merz or a little bit of everything with Röttgen?

And what else will happen at the start of the party congress?

Five observations:

1. Kramp-Karrenbauer leaves - and the CDU botched the farewell

The outgoing party chairman gives an almost emotional speech by her standards, which by normal standards still results in a rather sober speech.

But Kramp-Karrenbauer has had to take so much since her furious start as CDU boss two years ago that she has withdrawn more and more.

“This step was difficult.

But he was carefully considered and he was right, «she says of her announcement in February of last year that she would resign from the chairmanship and thus also get out of the race for the candidate for Union chancellor.

At that time the situation in Thuringia had escalated, and Kramp-Karrenbauer's attempts to mediate with the CDU there failed colossally.

"Not always having lived up to your expectations and my own demands, that hurts - even today," she says.

At a normal party congress one would see many very sad faces among the delegates.

Part of the truth is that the CDU also badged Kramp-Karrenbauer and saw off in the end, the bad collective conscience would show on their faces.

But then the party messed up the farewell digitally: CDU Vice Volker Bouffier says a lot of nice things, speaks longer than Kramp-Karrenbauer himself. The Rhineland-Palatinate Julia Klöckner and Christian Baldauf talk more about the upcoming state election campaign than about the outgoing chairwoman .

Finally, Kramp-Karrenbauer also gets an embarrassing image film from the party, as the community studies-LK could cut it for the trust teacher to explain to the failed one that she was actually the best.

Well

2. The Chancellor says something without saying it

Of course she has a favorite.

Of course, Angela Merkel knows who of the three applicants she wants to see as her successor at the top of the party and possibly as her successor in the Chancellery.

But she can't say, at least not directly.

So she chooses a detour.

Merkel, connected from the Chancellery, begins her speech by looking back on 2005, when the then CDU leader became Chancellor.

At that time, she says, you used to make phone calls with Nokia cell phones, at that time China's economy was smaller than the German one, there was no parental allowance, no legal right to a day care center.

You have to grin inside: Yes, that's how it used to be.

Then she lists everything that came after that: the financial crisis, the refugee crisis and so on.

What is that?

But probably a small, mean rejection of Friedrich Merz, who last ran for the Bundestag election in 2005 and turned his back on politics after the end of the legislative period.

The world has changed a lot since 2005, says Merkel.

You can read it like this: How is someone who has been out since then supposed to lead our party, let alone our country?

One should read it that way.

But who does she want then?

Norbert Röttgen?

Hardly, as the Chancellor once put him outside the door as Environment Minister.

At the very end, Merkel says she would like "a team" to be elected.

Armin Laschet and his runner-up candidate Jens Spahn compete as a team.

This is how you say something without saying it.

3. The CSU boss holds an application speech

Markus Söder is the ghost of this party congress, already now, on the eve of the big decision.

It haunts the delegates' heads, as a fantasy, as a possible candidate for chancellor.

The question is whether Söder, regardless of who is elected tomorrow, might not be the better one.

On Friday evening he will appear in person, connected from Munich, next to him is a bust of Franz Josef Strauss.

The party leader of the CSU holds his greeting.

Well, that's not true, it's actually an application speech.

First of all, Söder dutifully praises the three candidates, with each of them he can "work well" (which is only partially true).

Then, however, he quickly moves on to the topic that made him great nationwide: the pandemic.

"We will overcome Corona," says Söder, now again a statesman and crisis manager.

Concepts for the time after that are also needed.

"Corona is changing more than we think," says Söder, economically, socially, technologically, and suddenly the head of a regional party is no longer speaking, but someone who obviously has the confidence to shape this change.

One should, he says, "not just give old answers to new questions."

By then, at the latest, there is no longer any doubt that he is most likely to trust himself to answer.

At the end he wishes "God's blessing".

If there had been delegates, one thing is certain, the hall would have raved.

4. Such a digital party conference also has advantages

Sure, the circumstances are difficult, the start of the party conference was not a lavish party.

No applause, no flowers, no hugs, all those who talked on stage were somehow talking into space.

There are, it must be said, nicer moments in a politician's life.

On the other hand: Anyone who has ever been to a normal party congress knows how tough it can be, how drowsy it can be if the chairman's speech does not want to end or the debate breaks all time limits.

That, after all, is not a problem this Friday.

There are hardly any pronunciations.

The party leadership adheres strictly to the direction, films and switching ensure at least a certain dynamic.

And, best of all, the speeches are refreshingly short.

So briefly that you even stick to the statements by Chancellor Helge Braun on the corona crisis, because you know: it will continue soon.

A little tip for Saturday: The speeches of the three chairman candidates will not get out of hand either.

15 minutes are provided for everyone.

It couldn't be any shorter.

5. A supposed loser is the first winner of the party congress

It was a pretty bad year for the CDU.

Management crisis, scheduling problems, controversy between candidates.

After all, someone made something out of that time: Paul Ziemiak.

Everyone in the CDU now loves the General Secretary, who seemed hopelessly overwhelmed at the beginning of his term in office, and there are definitely reasons for that.

Ziemiak has been the hinge between the applicants in the past few months, he stepped in where Kramp-Karrenbauer failed and made sure that the party also appears on the net.

Above all, he planned this digital party convention, which was certainly not only fun, but at least made sure that the first day went comparatively smoothly.

Sure, the network jerked at the beginning, not everyone was wearing their mask as intended.

But Ziemiak led through the opening evening so confidently, as if he had never done anything other than stage shows.

If he managed to get a little more specific in terms of content, he could really become a great Secretary General.

Heiner Geissler would have turned around in his grave with Ziemiak's constant drivel from the "center".

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Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-01-15

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