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Digital party conference: Friedrich Merz elected new CDU leader

2022-01-22T11:20:53.179Z


Friedrich Merz made it on the third attempt: At the digital party conference, the delegates elected the 66-year-old with 94.62 percent as chairman of the CDU. Formally, however, he is not yet in office.


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Friedrich Merz: Armin Laschet's successor as CDU boss

Photo: HANNIBAL HANSCHKE / REUTERS

Friedrich Merz is the new party leader of the CDU.

The 66-year-old was elected the tenth chairman of the party at the 34th party conference of the CDU by the 1,001 delegates.

Of the 983 votes cast, 16 abstained and 915 were in favor of Merz.

This corresponds to an agreement of 94.62 percent.

Formally, however, Merz is not yet in office: the digital election of the delegates must be confirmed in writing, the counting of the votes should take place on January 31st.

As in the previous year, the event took place digitally due to the pandemic.

Merz was visibly touched after the election.

For Merz it was the third attempt to become head of the Christian Democrats.

Last year he lost the election against Armin Laschet, in 2018 he lost to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.

There was no opponent this time.

In a vote by the party base at the end of last year, a good 62 percent voted in favor of Merz - significantly more than for the foreign politician Norbert Röttgen (26 percent) and the former head of the Chancellery Helge Braun (12 percent).

Merz succeeds Armin Laschet as chairman, who only held the office for one year.

He ran as the Union's candidate for Chancellor in the Bundestag elections and announced his withdrawal from the party leadership after the historically poor performance of the CDU and CSU.

In his last report as chairman, Laschet called Merz "just the right person" for the job at the beginning of the party congress.

He called for intra-party solidarity and confidentiality.

"We have to learn to work seriously again." It must also be accepted that the CDU and CSU will never again argue as they did last time about the chancellor candidacy.

Laschet, who prevailed against CSU boss Markus Söder, again emphasized his responsibility for the election defeat.

“It's an open wound, still.

And the scar will remain.«

More soon at SPIEGEL.de

svs/dpa

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-01-22

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