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Candidates for the presidency of the CDU answer questions from party members. Norbert Röttgen, Armin Laschet and Friedrich Merz are harmonious. Differences can only be recognized by listening carefully.
By Sabine Henkel, ARD capital studio
In the end, he can’t help it: Friedrich Merz didn’t mention Angela Merkel for 90 minutes, but then, at the end of the evening, he criticized the chancellor: “Something is breaking here. A new culture of discussion is emerging the CDU, and the CDU he’s thinking of a time after Angela Merkel. “
That’s a comparatively harmless Merz vocabulary. You can do it in another way. Just think of the “terribly bad” government job or the “establishment” that supposedly wanted to stop you as party leader.
Harmonious trio
But the scathing and sharp criticism does not fit tonight, the night in which the three candidates for the presidency of the CDU exercise in consensual harmony. It cannot be called tough competition, they are far from being a confrontation. There is agreement on many points, including on the subject of the culture of discussion. Not only Merz, but also Armin Laschet and Norbert Röttgen talk about the CDU needing to discuss more, but without mentioning Merkel.
It is really like this: the party is considered an electoral association of chancellor and presents itself at party congresses as a Disciplined Christian Union. Perhaps she was never eager to argue or even argue. And you have to listen carefully to this candidate contest to detect differences between the candidates. Much consensus. But: there are differences.
Differences in listening carefully
There is Armin Laschet, the prime minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, who presents himself as a team player who wants to anchor the CDU in the political center, Merkel’s center, and hold the party and society together. There is Norbert Röttgen, the foreign politician in the Bundestag, who acts as a modernizer and wants the party to be younger and more feminine. And there is Friedrich Merz, the man from the bank, who tries one last comeback and is committed to the renewal of the ecological social market economy.
These three answer questions from the party. They know each other well, they are with you. After all, they all come from NRW. Röttgen has the highest proportion of speeches, he explains a lot and some things in a complicated way, but he can convey his will to modernize. We are 20 years behind in digitization ”. He also wants to make climate policy his own. “The weather must sound like the CDU.” He wants to hijack the climate policy and eliminate the problem of the Greens.
Laschet focuses on divided society, refers to the corona pandemic, lateral thinkers and their manifestations, while a few streets away people in clinics are fighting for their lives. Merz, who because of his size always looks down on others a bit, even sitting down, talks about economic policy. He is also thinking about a generation contract, he wants to reduce taxes on young entrepreneurs and abolish the property tax for young families to make it easier for them to buy a house. CDU Policy.
Rarely controversy
There are three men who are running and answering questions about how the CDU can become more feminine. Laschet and Röttgen are in favor of a quota. Merz is against, he would prefer that the CDU “becomes more feminine from below”. But the party has been waiting for young women from district associations for many years, often to no avail.
Röttgen has brought in a chief strategist to his election campaign team: Ellen Demuth, 38, who is very young for the CDU. She must lead the project “Socially acceptable network of the CDU”, attracting young women. This night is almost the only situation in 90 minutes in which something like controversy arises.
Not a sure winner
As is known, Merz is looking for a secretary general and Laschet has Jens Spahn at his side. The Minister of Health acts as his deputy. Some in the party hope he is still running for office. To do this, Spahn would have to either separate from Laschet, which could be considered unfair in the CDU, or use an option that digital voting offers: run if Laschet is to be defeated on the digital ballot and then run on the second ballot, which is by letter. he follows.
A hypothesis that does not arise in the triell between Laschet, Röttgen and Merz. All three have confidence in themselves and are sure of victory, although none seems the sure winner that night.
