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Germany’s conservatives launch race to replace Merkel

The search for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's eventual successor begins in earnest this week, as her centre-right CDU party opens the race to elect a new leader after her heir apparent stepped down.

Published: 17 February 2020 14:05 CET
Germany's conservatives launch race to replace Merkel
Jens Spahn, Armin Laschet and Friedrich Merz. Photo: DPA

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who was Merkel's preferred successor, was toppled after just 14 months as CDU leader following a row over apparent cooperation with the far-right AfD party in a regional parliament.

The 57-year-old will hold talks this week with the three favourites to succeed her: long-time Merkel rival Friedrich Merz, Health Minister Jens Spahn and Armin Laschet, the premier of Germany's largest federal state North-Rhine Westphalia.

After Kramp-Karrenbauer failed to unite the party behind her, fears abound that the bid to find a worthy successor to Merkel could split the CDU, as the top candidates have differences in political direction.

“The problem with political giants is that they have to end like giants… an orderly transition of power is not possible,” wrote popular daily Bild on Sunday, comparing Merkel to former CDU chancellor Helmut Kohl.

READ ALSO: Merkel rival Merz in bid to succeed her as German chancellor

Conservative roots

After nearly two decades in which Merkel has positioned the CDU firmly in the centre, the race is set to be defined by differing visions of the party's future.

Merz and Spahn, both of whom ran against Kramp-Karrenbauer in the last leadership race, advocate a return to the party's conservative roots, while Laschet is more of a centrist like Merkel.

Merz, a 64-year-old former lawyer and board member at the German arm of investment firm BlackRock, called Merkel's government “unsustainable” and “abysmal” last November.

Ambitious 38-year-old Spahn, meanwhile, has combined social liberalism on issues such as gay marriage with a harder line on immigration.

Speaking to Bild on Sunday, the leader of the CDU's parliamentary youth wing Mark Hauptmann said a “team solution” between Merz and Spahn would be “ideal”.

“They would speak to the conservative wing but also to the youth, and cover both rural and urban milieus,” he said.

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Though widely seen as the continuity candidate, 58-year-old Laschet criticised Merkel's European policy in a speech Sunday, calling for a “quicker and more decisive response” to French President Emmanuel Macron's EU reform proposals.

And some believe that cooperation between all three candidates may be the best way to keep the CDU united.

“The CDU needs all three, regardless of which roles they take,” former CDU general secretary Ruprecht Polenz told Bavarian radio on Saturday.

Electoral pressure

The contest comes as the CDU struggles to fend off electoral pressure from the AfD to the right and the Green Party, which is soaring in the polls, to the left.

It has tumbled from 40 percent of the vote under Merkel in 2013 to poll at just 26 percent, according to an Infratest survey published last Thursday.

Angela Merkel wants to step down as chancellor when her term ends in 2021. Photo: DPA

Leading conservative figures have warned that the party could lose further support if the leadership question is allowed to drag out.

“We need clarity, quickly,” Alexander Dobrindt, the parliamentary leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party CSU, told broadsheet Die Welt on Sunday.

Kramp-Karrenbauer herself has repeatedly said she wants the question of her succession to be resolved by the summer.

After this week's meetings with candidates, she will hold further talks with CDU grandees next Monday before agreeing a definitive time frame for her departure.

There may yet be another twist in the tale, however.

Kramp-Karrenbauer has called for her successor to also be named as the CDU and CSU's joint candidate for chancellor at the next elections.

Yet CSU leader Markus Söder said Monday that he believes the two questions should be answered separately.

While the CSU would not meddle in the CDU leadership debate, Söder said, “the question of the election candidate can only be answered together”.

His comments will prompt speculation that the CSU leader favours a fourth prospective successor to Merkel: himself.

 By Coralie Febvre

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POLITICS

ANALYSIS: What’s at stake in Germany’s eastern state elections?

After success in Thuringia and Saxony, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) may well come in first in another eastern state election this Sunday. We spoke with a political scientist to analyse what's at stake as Brandenburg goes to the polls.

Published: 19 September 2024 09:11 CEST
ANALYSIS: What's at stake in Germany's eastern state elections?

German politics’ “eastern September” is set to finally end Sunday – with more ruminations and reflections likely to come about the recent fortunes of the far-right AfD at the ballot box.

If current polls are anything to go by, the AfD could come in first in the eastern state encircling Berlin – which counts Potsdam as its capital.

After overtaking the governing Social Democrats (SPD) in a recent shock poll, the party is currently at around 28 percent, compared to the SPD on 25 percent. The centre-right Christian Democrats come in at 16 percent in the latest poll and the left-populist Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) – named after its founder – charts in at 14 percent.

The remaining parties come in much lower – with the Greens, Left and liberal Free Democrats all facing possible ejection from the state parliament.

Another victory for the AfD – or even a strong showing should the SPD still manage a narrow surprise win – will certainly boost the far-right’s confidence, after it came in first in Thuringia and second in Saxony earlier this month, following state elections that saw all three of Germany’s federally governing parties take massive losses.

Thuringia and Saxony results will likely hang over Brandenburg on Sunday – with Germany’s governing parties, many everyday Germans, and foreigners all watching with some trepidation. Here’s what to watch out for following the Brandenburg result.

READ ALSO: ‘Political earthquake’ – What the far-right AfD state election win means for Germany 

A newly confident AfD insists it must be part of government

The AfD has repeatedly argued that it must be considered as a possible coalition partner to join German governments – whether at the federal, state, or local level. 

“There are no politics without the AfD,” its co-leader Tino Chrupalla said following the Thuringia results. However, all other parties have explicitly refused to work with the AfD to form a governing coalition – meaning that as high as its results this month have been, they fall well short of the absolute majority that would be required to govern alone.

READ ALSO: ‘We need change’: Germany’s far-right eyes power after state election win

However, its getting more difficult to form coalitions to keep the AfD out, with the centre-right CDU in Thuringia even open to governing with the leftwing populist BSW after mainstream parties like the Greens and FDP were thrown out of state parliament entirely.

University of Mainz political scientist Kai Arzheimer, who specialises in the German far-right, says whether the far-right ever get into a German government or not depends mostly on whether – and how – the CDU is willing to work with the AfD.

Thuringia election results on a screen

People watch the first exit polls results for Thuringia’s state elections come in at the State Parliament in Erfurt on September 1st, 2024. Photo by Joerg CARSTENSEN / AFP

“For the time being, it should be able to form coalitions against the AfD, even if they are rather awkward,” says Arzheimer, who adds that even the different regional chapters of the CDU may have different opinions about working with the AfD.

“Within the eastern state parties of both the CDU and the FDP, there seems to be some appetite for coming to an arrangement with the AfD. While a formal coalition would probably split either party, we have already seen some tentative moves towards an informal cooperation.”

Ultimately, the Brandmauer or “firewall” concept in German politics – in which all other parties refuse to work with the AfD – may end up coming under increasing stress on the back of eastern state election results, where governing with the far-right no longer becomes unthinkable.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: Could the far-right AfD ever take power in Germany?

What the mainstream parties take from eastern election results

It’s probably no coincidence that Germany’s ruling government decided to re-institute border controls at its land borders with other EU states shortly after the AfD topped the Thuringia state poll, according to Arzheimer, who says the elections are just the latest in a number of things at work when if comes to Germany’s migration debate.

“The border controls, the plans for the stricter enforcement of repatriation orders, and most of all the government’s harsher rhetoric are as much a reaction to Saxony and Thuringia as they are an attempt to control the fallout from the Solingen knife attack and a response to the whole ‘debate’ on immigration,” he says.

“Many experts seem to agree that they are neither practical nor that useful, and introducing them more or less overnight smacks of a degree of panic.”

READ ALSO: Should foreign residents in Germany be concerned about far-right AfD win?

Polls conducted following the election found that migration and internal security issues were big drivers of the AfD vote – despite these being issues for the national, rather than regional, government. 

Of the AfD voters in Thuringia, more than 70 percent said either migration or crime and internal security played the largest role in influencing their vote. Slightly less than ten percent said social security. Despite the AfD’s pro-Russian views, only three percent of AfD voters in Thuringia said Germany’s support of Ukraine decisively influenced their votes.

Besides the mainstream parties like the SPD reacting with spur-of-the-moment migration policies, the Brandenburg result may end up putting pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz from within his own SPD.

Brandenburg SPD’s Dietmar Woidke may still be able to hold onto the premiership, but he has said he will resign if he doesn’t beat the AfD outright. Should he lose, calls may grow louder within the SPD for Scholz to resign himself – or at least declare that he won’t stand as a chancellor candidate again.

READ ALSO: How an explosive row over immigration has divided Germany

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