CDU politician Merz in Apolda on February 26th:Older, more rural, more conservative
Photo:Martin Schutt / picture alliance / dpa
If it were up to Gerhard Oertel, the matter would have long been resolved with the party chairmanship. "The CDU needs a clear line again. That is only possible with Friedrich Merz," says Oertel. He is 66 years old and CDU parliamentary deputy in the city council of Ballenstedt, a 9,000-inhabitant town on the Harz in Saxony-Anhalt. It is bad that the election of the CDU party chairmanship has been postponed to December because of Corona and that the "incompetent" Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is still at the head of the party. "From my point of view, only Mr. Merz has shown his backbone. He has to save the party now." During a visit from Merz to Magdeburg not so long ago, Oertel and some party friends held up signs. "Merz 2021" was on one side and "Merz Revolution" on the other.
There are many Christian Democrats in the eastern regional associations who want to return to the "good old CDU" with Merz. When Kramp-Karrenbauer was elected at the end of 2018 at the party convention in Hamburg, the East Germans made it clear who they would have liked. The state association of Saxony-Anhalt was the only one to question its members in advance. 55.8 percent voted for Merz, only 39.5 percent for Kramp-Karrenbauer. Most of the Saxon delegates also voted for Merz at the party congress. Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer said in an interview after the election: "Most of them wanted Friedrich Merz."
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