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New CDU boss Laschet: It will be tough weeks now
Photo: Michael Kappeler / DPA
Twelve months of struggle are over, twelve months of waiting are over: Armin Laschet is the new CDU chairman, tight - but at least.
The first leadership question has been resolved.
But this is just not a normal year, this is a super election year, which is why the Union has to decide relatively quickly who will stand for it as candidate for chancellor.
At the latest after the state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate in mid-March, that's the announcement.
The problem: there are several options, again.
Armin Laschet, Markus Söder, possibly even Jens Spahn.
His miserable result in the election for party vice is a sign that the trust that the health minister seemed to have built within the party in recent months is apparently not yet very strong.
Regarding the initial situation: If Laschet wants, he can take action.
The CDU must insist on the candidacy, it is by far the larger of the two sister parties.
Laschet's polls were bad recently, but his victory should stabilize him, the values should go up, maybe not in Soder's spheres, but at least in that direction.
He also stands for a continuation of the pragmatic Merkel course, he won an election in NRW, has a very executive view of politics and is universally compatible, from yellow to red to green.
Laschet, so many see it, embodies the middle.
If he now integrates Norbert Röttgen and possibly even Friedrich Merz, Markus Söder can still be happy to become Chancellor - the matter is against him.
Or?
One problem is: There are probably still eight weeks to go until the decision, but Laschet is already being re-measured.
Everything he does and what he says will, from now on, run under the question of how fit he is to be chancellor, whether he can fill the hole that Angela Merkel has left behind and bring the maturity that is needed for the most powerful office in the country.
Medially, within the party, by opponents and supporters.
It is the test of his life.
It can go well - it can go terribly wrong too.
A look at Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer shows why.
Laschet has a starting advantage - and several starting disadvantages
AKK was also considered an almost certain candidate for chancellor when she was elected CDU chairwoman at the party conference in 2018.
She won because she led a government in Saarland, because she stood for Merkel's course, was considered a pragmatist and because she was universally compatible.
She embodied, well, the middle.
For a few weeks, Kramp-Karrenbauer was the country's most popular politician, which only reinforced the impression that the next chancellor at the top of the CDU is now doing gymnastics here.
Only the question of the candidate for chancellor remained open for now.
And suddenly the doubts began.
Kramp-Karrenbauer made mistakes, Merkel did her thing, and at the party base, trust in the chairwoman dwindled.
Within a few months, the authority she had earned with her victory was blown away.
Suddenly the tenor: AKK is not going to be.
The situation now is clearly different.
AKK was elected in 2018, the road to the federal election was long, much longer than now after Laschet's election.
At Kramp-Karrenbauer, many hoped in vain that she would prematurely persuade Merkel to make room in the Chancellery.
The pressure is now gone - Merkel will be gone in a good six months anyway.
That is Laschet's head start.
Laschet also has a starting disadvantage, even several: AKK came into office steadily, and as Secretary General she hardly made any mistakes.
Laschet has had a few rather unhappy months in which the not always justified image arose that he had his problems in crisis management.
Many Christian Democrats are unlikely to have voted for Laschet because he was the outstanding candidate for them, but rather because he was most likely to prevent Friedrich Merz.
His election also showed that the gap in the CDU between top and bottom, between party leadership and the grassroots, has widened in recent months.
Laschet won because he had the support of many who - like him - have a lot to lose if the CDU changes direction.
Laschet has a difficult time among the members who tick more conservatively than those Christian Democrats who rule in the federal and state levels, as shown by a number of votes in the district associations.
It is quite possible that Merz himself supports him.
But his followers are difficult for Laschet to reach.
Why is that a problem?
The upcoming federal election will be more unpredictable than it has been for a long time.
Merkel is no longer running, the Greens are on their way to becoming a People's Party, the AfD has established itself in the party system.
If you want to win the election, you have to mobilize.
Without your own people it won't work.
The extreme right is likely to present him as a Merkel copy
In general - the AfD.
Even that should not be unimportant in the question of the candidacy for chancellor.
The extreme right became so strong because it had an enemy image: Angela Merkel.
Laschet will certainly not just become a second Merkel.
It seems just as certain, however, that the AfD will try to portray him as just that - a copy of the Chancellor.
Hard weeks are now waiting for Laschet.
The fact that the question of the candidacy for chancellor is not decided immediately has the advantage for him that he can test himself - and the CDU him.
But the advantage is also a disadvantage.
Without an automatism in the direction of candidacy, the focus should quickly be on the question of what speaks against him - and for Söder.
The longer the question remains open, the more the doubts could grow.
If the state elections fail, the defeats will not be chalked up to Söder - but Laschet.
With what force the Prime Minister should then access the candidacy for Chancellor is questionable.
Söder emphasizes that he wants to clarify the question in peace.
That sounds like he's standing in line, as if he doesn't want to question the CDU's first access rights.
However, Laschet should not rely on the flattery.
That Söder wants to run, there can hardly be any doubt, these days he repeatedly outlines how the Union, in his opinion, should go into the federal elections.
And Söder senses weakness.
If Laschet shows it, the CSU boss strikes.
The corona crisis was an example of this.
As Söder said in the summer: You can only become a candidate for chancellor if you have proven yourself in the crisis.
He didn't mean Laschet, but one thing above all: himself.
As I said: The weeks will be tough.
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