Laschet does it.
A victory for the "back room" eminence of the CDU.
The Union is sending the signal that it will soon hand over the Chancellery to others.
Comment from Merkur editor-in-chief Georg Anastasiadis.
Munich - To write off Armin Laschet too early is dangerous.
After Hannelore Kraft and Friedrich Merz, the energetic Bavarian Markus Söder now has to learn this bitter lesson.
The CDU committees pushed through their party leader with a crowbar.
Not because he was the stronger candidate.
But because he was her candidate.
And because Söder, when he attacked the “back rooms” of the CDU, messed with the most powerful eminences of the West German republic, the Schäubles and Bouffiers, who see themselves as the true and only custodians of the legacy of Adenauer and Kohl - beyond the Angela Merkel accident .
The East German CDU regional leaders who fought in this epic power struggle in Söder's camp are still not in their league 30 years after reunification.
Söder suddenly "Bayern Trump": CDU grandees retaliated for inciting the coup
Söder, the “candidate of the hearts”, dared to rebel - and was shattered by the power of his big sister. Otherwise the CSU would “arrogate”, he said on the penultimate day of the wrestling, when he had in truth already lost the fight and was only looking for a face-saving exit. Before that, the CSU boss, who was thoroughly washed up, had to learn that others also master the rules of hardball. With interest and compound interest, the CDU grandees paid him back for his brutal action against Laschet. And they left no doubt that they were ready to reward Söder's destruction of the CDU state party and its chairman with the destruction of his reputation.
In order to maintain this balance of horror, they also accepted the loss of power in Berlin.
The more the Franconian incited the CDU base to putsch against their leadership, the more the "back room" greats ridiculed by Söder fueled Söder's media transformation from survey favorite to unscrupulous, power-hungry Bayern Trump.
Söder only gave in when everything was in danger: his reputation, the Union and the election.
A vote in the joint group with the expected close result would have finally turned the Union into a smoking heap of rubble.
But even so, the Bavarian must ask himself: Was it worth it?
He could have had a result like yesterday's a week ago.
CSU loses again to the CDU: the establishment ignored the wishes of the base
Söder can comfort himself with the fact that he will be the super heavyweight of the Union as a “side candidate for Chancellor” in the future. The CSU leadership, however, has to face the fact that they lost the third major power struggle with their sister in the Merkel era: Seehofer was beaten up in 2017 because he allegedly treated the Chancellor like a schoolgirl at the CSU party congress, and had to in 2018 Seehofer also capitulate in the migration dispute. At the same time, the CDU establishment ignored the base's requests for staff three times: twice they prevented Merz, now Söder. But the Merkel Union, as it moved further and further away from its voters in terms of content and personnel, became weaker and weaker.
And Laschet?
He is the Lazarus of the CDU.
On Sunday he was politically dead. Now they are marveling at the miracle of his resurrection in the C parties.
Only joy does not really want to arise.
The CDU, CSU and their doubting and angry voters are left with only the vague hope that their torn, unpopular, but tenacious and fundamentally decent now-after-all candidate can repeat his miracle when it comes to the final for the Chancellery against the Green Annalena Baerbock.
But you shouldn't bet on that.
A comment by Georg Anastasiadis
