The centrist Armin Laschet, Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, is the new president of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) after winning the vote held this Saturday in the digital congress of Angela Merkel's party.
Laschet, 59, represents the continuity with the ideological line of the chancellor.
His victory opens the race to choose the candidate who will try to succeed Merkel as head of the German government in the elections next September.
The chancellor, who governs in coalition with the Social Democrats of the SPD, will not run for office.
The conservatives of the CDU face the challenge to fill the void that Merkel will leave and to take advantage of the legacy of the one who has established - at first, reluctantly - as the great European political figure of the last 15 years.
Faced with the difficulty of replacing her, the 1,001 delegates with the right to vote have opted for Laschet's continuation option, which also offers management experience by being at the head of the most populated state in the country, and one of the richest.
The uncertainty over the election of the new head of the CDU, the most important conservative party in Europe, has lasted until the last minute.
But the appointment still does not close Merkel's succession, because nowhere is it written that the head of the party should be her candidate for the elections.
Laschet is expected to face Markus Söder, leader of the Bavarian brother-party CSU and right now the big favorite to win the nomination as the center-right candidate for Chancery.
Traditionally the CDU has launched one of its own into the electoral race, but there is a relatively recent example to the contrary.
In 2002, when Merkel had been chairing the formation for two years, she handed over the candidacy to Edmund Stoiber, from the CSU.
He faced the then chancellor, the Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder, and lost.
The result of the congress held this Saturday also extends its relevance to the future new Government of the first European economy and the alliances and coalitions that may be woven.
In just three years the German Green Party has gone from sixth to second in the polls, with a voting intention of 20% (that of the CDU is at 36%).
Some analysts say that Laschet could try to negotiate with them to govern, something that the right-wing candidate Merz, for example, did not contemplate.
The popularity of the CDU in the polls, however, is due to the popularity of Merkel, who has been winning elections for 15 years.
She is practically the only European ruler that has remained standing after the recent crises and despite the populist wave that has swept Europe.
Laschet lacks that support, so he will be judged by the outcome of the upcoming regional elections.
This is a super election year in Germany, with six elections to elect the Government in as many
Länder
or federal states
.
If he succeeds as party leader, both he and the CDU will emerge stronger for the transition to the post-Merkel era.
Laschet was the favorite of the apparatus, ahead of his rivals, the right-wing Friedrich Merz, and the also centrist Norbert Röttgen.
Analysts assumed that Merz would want to be the candidate himself, and that instead both Laschet and the centrist Röttgen would be willing to give up the job to someone with a higher popular rating than they.
“I assume that Laschet also wants to be a candidate for chancellor: from the beginning he has associated the presidency of the CDU with the candidacy.
He will not propose another candidate of his own accord, not even to Health Minister Jens Spahn, with whom he is a team, ”says Ursula Münch, political scientist and director of the Academy of Political Education in Tutzing, Bavaria.
"Now, by April or May, Laschet must have managed to convince the party and, above all, the media and the public, that not only does he know how to integrate, but that he is also a leader," he adds.
If he succeeds, Münch believes the CSU will also agree to him taking on the Greens (who have yet to nominate a candidate) and the Social Democratic candidate, Olaf Scholz, current finance minister.
Laschet has won in the second round by 521 votes to Merz's 466.
Röttgen had been left out in the first round, obtaining almost half the votes of the other two candidates.
In the congress, the first to be held entirely electronically, 1,001 party delegates had to decide between the rupture and the turn to the right proposed by Merz and a leadership that could be defined as more Merkel but without Merkel.
Merz is one of Merkel's biggest critics, especially of her immigration policy, and offered the affiliates to return the party to what he considers to be "its essences", further to the right of the place where the chancellor has left them .
Merz has proposed Laschet as finance minister of the current government, according to Reuters.
A Merkel spokesperson has replied that no restructuring of the Executive is planned.
During the Laschet campaign, he has joined his political destiny with the Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, 40, who will be his vice president.
Spahn, who enjoys great popularity due to the management of the pandemic, is in the pools as one of the possible candidates for chancellor.
The press has reported that he has been probing his chances among party leaders, although he denies having such ambition.
The other candidate being considered is Söder, leader of the CSU, Prime Minister of Bavaria and who has also gained a lot of political weight during the coronavirus crisis.
Söder is the top-rated Conservative leader by conservative voters, with 80% support versus 32% for Laschet, according to a recent Infratest Dimap poll.
"I am aware of the responsibility that this work entails and I will do everything possible to do it well in the next regional elections and to ensure, facing the national elections, that the next chancellor comes from this party," Laschet said after meeting the result of the vote.
Laschet said he was aware, and more in view of the tight result, that his job will consist of unifying the CDU and getting the electorate to trust the party.
In his speech prior to the vote, he spoke of the danger of polarization, alluding to what happened in Washington and referred to his main contender, Friedrich Merz, in a veiled way, saying that the party "does not need a CEO but a team leader."
He also gave a couple of personal touches by mentioning his father, a miner from Aachen, and showing the identification plate that he used in the mine and that symbolized, he said, trust between colleagues.
Formally, Laschet does not replace Merkel as party leader but Annegret Kramp-Karrembauer.
The politician, the current defense minister, won the 2018 congress in Hamburg, to which Merz was also presented.
She was Merkel's natural successor, but a year ago she resigned the party presidency and the chancellor race, thus truncating the transition that Merkel had prepared and opening a period of great uncertainty in the German center-right.
The three candidates appeared this morning before the screens of the 1,001 delegates from a set located in the Messe fairgrounds in Berlin.
They gave their speeches of between 15 and 20 minutes and before 11 o'clock the first telematic voting took place.
As none of the candidates exceeded 50% of the vote, a second round was passed.
The delegates will confirm the election within a few days by post.
