CDU wants to elect Merz as the new chairman at the party conference

Created: 2022-01-22Updated: 2022-01-22 05:56

Friedrich Merz in an interview with the dpa in his office.

© Michael Kappeler/dpa

With Friedrich Merz, the CDU elects the third chairman in just over three years after Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and Armin Laschet.

He should create the break in the opposition.

Berlin – With the election of the former Union faction leader Friedrich Merz as the new chairman, the CDU wants to give the signal for a new beginning four months after its disaster in the federal election.

It is now a question of "unity and team spirit", said the outgoing Secretary General Paul Ziemiak on Friday evening in Berlin after meetings of the Presidium and the Federal Executive Committee to prepare for the online party congress this Saturday.

As a consequence of the Union's historically worst result in a federal election, at 24.1 percent, the CDU is re-electing its entire leadership.

The result must then be formally confirmed by postal vote.

The CDU must compete together as a team, said Ziemiak.

With four state elections, 2022 is a crucial year.

"We want and we will win the upcoming state elections," he said, referring to the elections in Saarland in March and in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia in May, where the CDU is the prime minister.

How big is the support?

It was eagerly awaited how great the support is with which the 1001 delegates are giving the 66-year-old Merz - and whether he will get the more than 80 percent of the votes he is aiming for. Merz will be the third CDU chairman in just over three years, after then-Chancellor Angela Merkel retired from the party leadership in 2018 after 18 years. In two previous attempts at the party presidency, the economic expert lost to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer in December 2018 and to Armin Laschet in January 2021.

Because of the corona pandemic, only the closest leadership will be present at the party headquarters in Berlin.

Delegates vote online.

Merz's election is considered certain after he was chosen in December in the first member survey in the history of the CDU for party chairmanship with 62.1 percent to succeed Armin Laschet, who failed as a candidate for chancellor.

Immediately after the party congress, Merz wanted to gather the new leadership for the first time.

Officially, the constitutive meetings of the new management bodies should be on February 7th.

more on the subject

Head of state: CDU remains people's party under Merz

Prien for readjustment of the relationship between the CDU and CSU

Prien for readjustment of the relationship between the CDU and CSU

Brandenburg's CDU leader Michael Stübgen thinks it makes sense that Merz, as party leader, is also at the head of the Union faction in the Bundestag. "Angela Merkel saw it the same way over 19 years ago, that you have to bundle both things, especially in the opposition. I personally see it that way too," said the long-time member of the Bundestag and current Minister of the Interior of the German Press Agency in Potsdam. Brinkhaus is only elected until April 30, he would like to remain in office beyond that.

SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert told the newspapers of the Funke media group about the future CDU boss: "I think he's a Merz in sheep's clothing." Merz is trying tactically to create a new image.

"He seems to have noticed that the socio-political positions he has presented in Germany are no longer winning majorities and are also scaring off potential coalition partners," said Kühnert.

Merkel does not take part in the online party congress

Ex-Chancellor Merkel is not present at the party conference.

Her office had communicated this to the German Press Agency on request.

Merkel also spoke to Laschet “about the fact that she would like to show her attachment to the CDU in a different form than as honorary chairman in the future”.

Merkel was CDU leader for 18 years - from 2000 to 2018. She also canceled an invitation from Merz for a meal on Saturday evening for "scheduled reasons", as did her successor as CDU leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.

Corresponding information from the "Spiegel" had been confirmed to the dpa.

The field of candidates for the CDU leadership

At Merz's request, Mario Czaja, a member of the Bundestag and former Berlin Senator for Social Affairs, is to be elected Secretary General at the party conference.

Among other things, Czaja is to cover the workers' wing.

For formal reasons, Christina Stumpp, a member of the Bundestag presented by Merz as the future Deputy Secretary General, can only be elected at a later party conference.

Of the five previous deputy chairmen, only Silvia Breher, member of the Bundestag from Lower Saxony, is standing again.

The Schleswig-Holstein Education Minister Karin Prien, the Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer, the Baden-Württemberg member of the Bundestag Andreas Jung and the member of the Bundestag and economic expert Carsten Linnemann are new candidates.

Eight women and men are running for the other seven posts in the party presidency, including the chairwoman of the Women's Union, Annette Widmann-Mauz, and the previous deputy party leader and former Health Minister Jens Spahn.

Tough competition is also looming for the other 26 places on the party's federal executive board: 38 candidates had applied by Friday evening.

Half of the 54 applicants for the leadership of the CDU are women.

dpa