Does he risk the power struggle? The CDU grandees Laschet, Merz and Kramp-Karrenbauer have made it publicly clear that they do not want CSU chief Markus Söder as a candidate for chancellor, but instead claim the office for the CDU. How does the Bavarian Prime Minister react to this declaration of war? A comment by Merkur editor-in-chief Georg Anastasiadis.
You are not called to the chancellery. It is one of the most powerful offices in the world, one that you have to conquer: with competence, but also with toughness, cunning and, if necessary, tricky. Not that all of Markus Söder is inherently foreign; Horst Seehofer can sing a song about it. Nevertheless, the CSU boss dreamed the sweet dream that the big sister CDU, the virus-killer and the shining poll king, would serve the candidate for chancellor on the silver platter. With their almost rude cancellations towards Munich, the CDU grandees have now destroyed this hope. Merz, Laschet and AKK regard the government headquarters as a CDU ancestral estate. The surveys are too good to need a rescuer from Bavaria.
NRW chief Laschet was particularly clever this week, who, tired of the Bavarian hide-and-seek game, viciously asserted that he believed Söder's word not to be interested in the chancellorship. It was the ultimate challenge to Söder to show his colors. The Franke can now do it like the fox in a fairy tale and say that the high-hanging chancellor grapes are too sour for him anyway, which is why he doesn't even want to snap at them. Or he leaves the cover and fights openly for the office for which the party heroes Strauss and Stoiber once unsuccessfully applied. To conquer it would catapult Söder into the league of the CSU demigods in one fell swoop.
But does he also have the courage to take on the CDU officials? To challenge you with a visit to the Bundestag faction in order to court the favor of the CDU country chiefs, to outwit the rivals in the alliance with Spahn and / or Merkel? No doubt: Söder would have what it takes to lead the country strongly and represent it internationally at eye level. But unlike the daredevil Strauß, he is risk-averse deep down in his heart. He is afraid of the risk of seeking the power struggle, losing it and ultimately remaining behind in a damaged condition. Fox or Bavarian lion: Söder must now decide.