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CDU chief Laschet
Photo: ANNEGRET HILSE / REUTERS
The collective sigh of relief in the CDU was probably last so loud when Helmut Kohl announced his retirement as party leader after the union went bankrupt in 1998.
It should feel like a liberation that Armin Laschet first told the members of the Union parliamentary group on Thursday and then at a press appearance that he no longer wanted to stand in the way of a change at the top of the Christian Democrats.
Laschet has not even been in office for ten months.
But he led the Union to the worst result in its history as a candidate for chancellor.
In the CDU party, that's all that matters.
Armin Laschet will go down in history as
the
political unlucky person of his party - regardless of whether it is justified or not.
The current chairman has even announced that he will no longer stand in the way of a Jamaica option as a possible chancellor, although Laschet had acted until the end that he was the guarantor for such an alliance to come about.
So Laschet's statements are first of all good news for the Christian Democrats.
But after a sigh of relief, even one or the other bright head in the CDU should realize in the next breath that nothing really gets better.
Jamaica is hardly imaginable even without Laschet.
Instead, in the event of a traffic light coalition, the CDU, together with the Bavarian sister party CSU, threatens to go into the opposition - and if the SPD, Greens and FDP are not too stupid, it will stay for many years.
What the CDU lacks at the moment is much that a modern people's party needs: people, content, address.
No wonder that none of the aspirants for the Laschet successor has really dared to step out of cover in the past few days: none of them - neither Friedrich Merz, nor Jens Spahn or Norbert Röttgen - is anything like the natural heir of the current chairman.
Which of them wins the race in the end, unless a successful surprise candidate turns up, will have it at least as difficult in the CDU as Laschet.
Once Olaf Scholz is Chancellor, he will shine even brighter against this person.
And what is the content with which the post-Laschet CDU wants to regain its claim to political leadership?
Angela Merkel has stolen almost everything from the Christian Democrats that they once stood for.
During her term of office, there was the abolition of conscription, the phase-out of nuclear energy, and marriage for all.
Maybe you can't blame her.
16 years of chancellorship in a modern society of the 21st century could only be achieved in this way.
Armin Laschet's CDU simply has no idea what it is up to with Germany!
In addition, the CDU is now more honest than the old aunt SPD in its worst times.
Incidentally, the CSU has long since progressed.
With well-known concepts "for a modern Germany", as one of the unimaginative slogans of the Laschet campaign read, you no longer win elections.
Yes, with him as party chairman, the CDU cannot go on.
But even without him it will be difficult enough.
