comment
Are these still uncoordinated attacks, or is the system behind them? After the disastrous for the CDU Thuringia election, the attacks on party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and Chancellor Angela Merkel increasingly act as agreed.
On election night, the old Merkel rival Friedrich Merz made a first serve: The CDU could not "ignore this election result or simply sit out". The words were still comparatively cool, the message already clear. It was the stone throw into the water. Merz wanted to test where the waves hit.
The reactions were apparently encouraging for Merz. In an interview with the ZDF, he added: For years lay down "like a foggy the inaction and the lack of leadership by the Chancellor" over the country. The entire appearance of the federal government was "just bad grottenschlecht". On this Tuesday, Roland Koch - another rival from the old days - criticized the "disclaimer of leadership and especially of the Federal Chancellor" via the magazine "Cicero".
These are drumbeats. Flanked by the JU boss in the party executive, who asked the leadership question. Kramp-Karrenbauer then responded publicly with the question of power: Whoever wants to clarify the Chancellor's candidature already, could like to do so at the party congress in November. Just dare - that's her message to Merz and Co.
Path of disassembly
These are tough, inner-party struggles, as we know them in Germany mainly from another party: the SPD. Twelve seasoned chairmen since 1990 are proof of this. The SPD has sunk so low that in the future it may no longer have to fight for chancellor candidates.
Of course, the demise of the SPD is not solely the result of staff disasters and wear. But also. On this path of disassembly Friedrich Merz now leads his party. He social-democratizes the CDU.
Of course there have already been power struggles in the CDU before: Adenauer against Erhard, Kohl against Geissler, and yes, Merkel against Kochmerzwulffoettingerschaeuble. Only in all these conflicts was not the survival as a people's party at stake. The question was rather: Who would be the better chancellor? Who could defeat the SPD?
Now it's about the bare existence. First it caught the GroKo partner SPD, now the virus of decline also attacks the CDU. Only the CSU can still, as a true people's party to understand. The CDU reacts to the danger of relegation as the SPD. The leaders take each other under fire, personal aversions are linked with substantive differences.
State election Thuringia 2019
Preliminary final result
Second vote result
Shares in percent
CDU
21.8
-11.7
The left
31
+2.8
SPD
8.2
-4.2
AFD
23.4
+12.8
green
5.2
-0.5
FDP
5
+2.5
other
5.4
-1.7
allocation of seats
Total: 90
Majority: 46 seats
29
8th
5
5
21
22
The Left (29)
SPD (8)
Green (5)
FDP (5)
CDU (21)
AfD (22)
Source: Provincial Returning Officer
Results in detail
It is highly uncertain which potential antidote would effect what. For example, Friedrich Merz.
The is no doubt clearer, edged, formulation-stronger than Kramp-Karrenbauer and Merkel. Perhaps he would mobilize more in a federal election, the Union supporters, maybe even woo the AfD voters. Maybe he would lose it but in the liberal spectrum to the Greens. Who knows? A black-green coalition, in any case, should not be easy for a candidate Merz.
First zeitgeist party in Germany
The demise of the CDU may have less to do with its content than is far too readily accepted far to the right of the center. For example, there is the constant regret that the CDU is once again spoiling its conservative silverware and once again passing a red line - from the phase out of atomic energy and compulsory military service to the debate about cooperation with the Left Party - not at all in the tradition of German Christian Democracy ,
The CDU was founded as a bourgeois catch basin. The so-called Christian foundation of values carried them on Sundays ago, on weekdays was pragmatic policy in the here and now announced. And extremely flexible, extremely open.
Long before the Greens, the CDU was Germany's first zeitgeist party. What's more, without this flexibility, it would not have made it one of Europe's most successful people's parties. There is only one party that is even more flexible, even more agile: the CSU. And in the past it was actually more successful than the sister party.
Moreover, because the CDU is a pragmatic chancellor party and not an ideological party party, it has always organized around the offices of its powerful ones. The policy was usually organized out of State Chancelleries and the Chancellery, not from the CDU headquarters.
Kramp-Karrenbauer's initial attempt to give the party organization more weight again, therefore, in retrospect looks strangely crooked. It lacks access to the Chancellery, and the Ministry of Defense does not help. The CDU does not currently have a strategic center - and its two first protagonists, chancellor and party leader, repeatedly fall into political speechlessness or communicative displeasure. This juices the discourse and opens spaces for political opponents and populists.
And offers inner-party competitors attack surface. That is exactly what we are experiencing right now. In the end, Friedrich Merz may have been just the icebreaker for others lurking in his shadow. This, too, is a sign of social-democratized power politics.
First of all there is North Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister Armin Laschet. Incidentally, he would rather be politically with Merkel than with Merz. And a suitable candidate for black and green.
Depending on how much is left over from the CDU.
