2024-08-25 10:03:40
The decision on the Union’s candidate for chancellor is getting closer. After the state elections, CDU leader Merz has a very specific window of time to clarify the matter. Failure to use this opportunity could be disastrous.
Things are quieter in the CDU these days than they have been for a long time. The boss is on vacation. The general secretary is doing some election campaigning in Thuringia and Saxony. Everything is very dignified, because the hot phase is yet to come. The most controversial thing the party has to offer these days is a television appearance by Julia Klöckner from Rhineland-Palatinate, who shouts at the comedian and activist Enissa Amani on the subject of the Middle East in a talk show.
If only there wasn’t a slight ringing sound. A kind of tinnitus that doesn’t go away even after holding your nose and releasing pressure from your ears several times. It’s the little sister from Bavaria, the CSU. To be more precise: Markus Söder. Because even if the CDU has almost forgotten it, the K question has not yet been decided. And even though everything seems to be pointing towards Friedrich Merz, Bavaria likes to remind people these days that in the end it can only work with them and definitely not without them.
Actually, everything is going according to plan for Merz. It is not only in the CDU that people are now certain that the chairman will be chosen as the candidate for chancellor in a few weeks. Even the fact that the majority of members still believe that North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst has better chances is of no concern to the CDU leader, to put it bluntly. Because the party is still united behind him. The most important commandment is unity. Don’t argue. Let the traffic light coalition do that.
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Merz cannot really sit back and relax during his vacation, however. Because the chairman must, if he hasn’t already done so, come up with a plan to bring about a smooth candidate selection after the state elections. Not only Söder, but also the state premiers want to be involved. And nothing can go wrong with the K question this time.
No timetable has been announced so far. Even those close to the chairman don’t want to know anything. Merz would do well to keep his plans to himself, they say. Anything that leaks out too early threatens to damage the decision. That alone shows how delicate the situation is. On the one hand, you want to present your counterpart with a fait accompli, but on the other hand, you don’t want to offend them – especially not when that counterpart is called Markus Söder.
“It has to look really easy,” is what the party leadership keeps saying, even though everyone knows that the maneuver will hardly be that easy.
It wasn’t long ago that the CDU wasn’t even sure whether Merz was the right person. The poll numbers, public outbursts – all of this played into the hands of his critics. And Merz also expressed something almost like self-doubt at times. In an interview between the years, the CDU leader told the German Press Agency that he would be 70 years old after the next federal election in autumn 2025. “I would then be the oldest candidate for the office of Chancellor in the Federal Republic of Germany after Konrad Adenauer. These are considerations, these are considerations that I also have to keep in mind.”
The chairman has now stabilized considerably. He appears more statesmanlike and balanced. Not everyone in the CDU and CSU ranks is happy with the poll results. Many believe that, given the poor performance of the traffic light coalition, there should be much more to it. However, people console themselves with the knowledge that the SPD, Greens and FDP as a threesome are doing about as well as the Union alone. There is a feeling of unity. Criticism of one another? Is it kept to a minimum. Public mistakes by party colleagues? Are they laughed off.