The leaders of Angela Merkel’s party, the CDU, support Armin Laschet as candidate for the chancellery ahead of the federal elections on September 26th. After more than six hours of debate, 77.5% of board members voted in favor of Laschet while the leading contender of the Bavarian sister party CSU, Markus Soeder, obtained 22.5% of the votes. Soeder had already made it known that he would accept the CDU’s decision.
Soeder, 54, president of the CSU and governor of Bavaria, is more popular than Laschet in the polls, but is ready to step aside “without resentment”. The 60-year-old centrist former television journalist Laschet in the government of North Rhine-Westphalia is the candidate in continuity with Angela Merkel. Five months after leaving and penalized in the polls for the management of the coronavirus, the chancellor has never formally sided with Laschet. Speaking on a video conference, Hessian regional premier Volker Bouffier, who supports Laschet, warned that the decision “may not be accepted by the grassroots”.
The feud in the conservative camp is opposed by the clear decision of the Green Party that has deployed Annalena Baerbock as a candidate for the registry. Laschet, congratulating her on the appointment, promised “a fair electoral campaign” and urged the parties to be “respectful”.
The young ecologist will have to face one very ambitious challenge: “Yes, I have not been chancellor or even minister. I take the field for change. Others are fighting for the status quo. I believe that this country needs a new start ”, he said in his speech after the official candidacy, and stressed that climate protection is the“ foundation of the future ”.
Polls give i Gave as the second German party with 20% of the votes, immediately behind CDU / CSU: the consensus would therefore more than double compared to the 8.9% obtained in the 2017 consultations. “It is a special day in the history of the Greens and of our history “, declared the leader of the Greens Robert Habeck, saying he was proud to have” built a new style of conducting the party. We think it did the party good. I’ve always wanted power to have lived this way. I always wanted power to be lived like this. “Regarding the candidacy for the role of Premier, he admitted:” We both wanted to do it, but only one could.