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Just a few months ago, before the covid-19 pandemic, the battle for Angela Merkel’s succession in the conservative party had tints of reckoning, with a chancellery pressed for the immigration issue.
But now, in the face of the successes of the government headquarters in managing the pandemic, which brought it popularity records, the applicants for the position must guarantee that they will continue their fifteen years in power, as shown by the debate between the top three candidates performed on Saturday night and broadcast on television.
Both the moderate Armin Laschet, leader of North Rhine-Westphalia; Liberal Friedrich Merz, Angela Merkel’s longtime political adversary like former Minister Norbert Röttgen, avoided criticizing Merkel, in a corseted and rather boring debate.
The meeting was organized by the Youths of the German Christian Democratic party, the CDU.
No “breaks”
In early December, the party as a whole will appoint its future president, who will have all the ballots to become a candidate for the German chancellery during the legislative elections in autumn 2021, when Merkel plans to withdraw from politics.
According to the latest polls, the CDU would achieve a clear victory with 35% of the votes.
Even Merz, a supporter of the conservatives taking a turn to the right after the Merkel-era center-right, considered that the chancellor’s succession should not “constitute a rupture but a succession”. It was said by who until recently unambiguously denounced the balance sheet of the chancellor.
Merz focused on his favorite topic, the economy, and considered it “vital” not to leave debts to “future generations”, while the government decided to resort to loans en masse in the face of the economic consequences of the pandemic.
But, having never held any elected position, Merz, once a CDU gyrfalcon and today reconverted to the business world, has been heard little since the health crisis broke out, an issue that he did not address much this Saturday either.
Instead, Armin Laschet (59 years old), who shares favorite status with Merz, positioned himself as a man of the field.
Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populated region in Germany and also the one most affected by the epidemic, repeatedly recalled his “daily fight to defend” his fellow citizens.
“I have been in office for a long time,” he exclaimed, underlining the need for the party to “modernize”, while Friedrich Merz is often seen as a man of the past.
Laschet also boasted the support of Health Minister Jens Spahn, a man who has gained notoriety in the wake of the health crisis and is well regarded by the party’s more conservative wing.
Söder’s shadow
By contrast, 55-year-old Norbert Röttgen appeared to be less comfortable than his two competitors. “Our party needs courage, will and ability to renew itself,” said the former Minister of the Environment, an expert on international issues but without any position in the party.
“The three candidates were convincing without there being any winner”, considered after the debate the political scientist Uwe Jun, who pointed out that “Laschet and Merz are clearly favorites, to the detriment of Röttgen”.
However, it remains to be seen whether one of them will eventually succeed Angela Merkel. Well, in the national polls none of the three candidates arouses unanimity.
Among those responsible for the CDU, Health Minister Jens Spahn – who is not a candidate, however – is the best valued to lead the movement, according to a poll published this week.
On the other hand, for the chancellery, the polls indicate that the best placed would be Markus Söder (53 years old), minister-president of Bavaria and president of the CSU, the Bavarian party brother of the CDU.
And although Söder officially affirms that he wants to stay in Bavaria, the German media do not rule out that he will end up being appointed as a candidate for chancellorship.
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