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Germany’s embattled Christian Democratic Union party is coming under increasing pressure to signal its future direction, with leading members caught in a row over whether they should show more tolerance towards the far left or the hard right.
The conservative CDU is struggling to come to terms with the deep rifts in German politics that were exposed by an election debacle in the small state of Thuringia last week in which the regional CDU branch defied the orders of the party leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, and voted with the far-right Alternative für Deutschland to appoint a state premier.
Kramp-Karrenbauer’s surprise resignation on Monday, which she said was because she did not have sufficient backing, means the party is looking for a new leader. It now has to decide in an increasingly fragmented political landscape whether it shifts to the right – closer to the AfD – or keeps on the centrist course determined by Angela Merkel, the CDU’s leader until 2018.
The Thuringia vote came at the expense of the popular and respected regional leader of the leftwing Die Linke, Bodo Ramelow. Like the AfD, Die Linke has become a fixture in German politics. Both parties are strongest in the eastern states of former communist east Germany, where the established CDU and its grand coalition partner on the federal level, the Social Democrats (SPD), have been steadily losing votes.
Friedrich Merz
The 63-year-old lawyer left politics for the financial industry about a decade ago, but stepped down from his role at asset manager Blackrock last week, saying he wanted to get “more politically involved” in the future.
Having been ousted as parliamentary leader of the CDU by Merkel in 2002, many have said he has never forgiven the chancellor, though he has downplayed the idea of any lasting resentment towards her.
Merz has built up a personal fortune of millions, including two private jets, which has caused controversy, particularly after he claimed that he remained a member of the middle class.
He promises to return the CDU to its former strong position. He says he can win back millions of voters who drifted to the AfD and has presented himself as more liberal than in the past on issues such as gay marriage
Jens Spahn
Still aged only 39, the youngest member of Merkel’s fourth cabinet has in the past portrayed himself first and foremost as a critic of the chancellor’s refugee policy, calling it “the white elephant in the room”.
But his stint at the health ministry has revealed a new side to the ambitious and energetic politician, who has fought to introduce policies that weren’t a natural fit with his previous free-market conservative profile, such as compulsory measles vaccinations for children.
He is married to his long-term partner Daniel Funke, the editor of society magazine Bunte.
Armin Laschet
A staunch defender of Merkel’s migration policy and an uncompromising critic of the AfD, Laschet holds a natural position of authority in the CDU as premier of the large state of North-Rhine Westphalia.
Laschet pulled off a coup by ousting the Social Democratic Party in this traditional centre-left stronghold in 2017.
Known as a moderate in policy terms, Laschet is also still relatively unknown at federal level.
Markus Söder
A politician with a passion for dressing up for carnival in fancy dress (which in the past have included Shreck, Marilyn Monroe and Gandalf from Lord of the Rings), the 53-year-old Franconian used to have a reputation as a somewhat eccentric rabble-rouser.
But since being elected state premier in powerful Bavaria in 2018, Markus Söder has built a profile as a political operator who can do both folksy beer-hall speeches as well as sensible strategy-making, having voiced support for environmental protection schemes in the wake of the rise of Fridays for Future.
His disadvantage? In 70 years of democratic elections in post-war Germany, there has never been a chancellor from the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU.
The political analyst Ursula Münch said the CDU faced the dilemma of choosing whether to tilt itself towards Die Linke or the AfD, and that doing nothing would continue to weaken it.
“What happened in Thuringia was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she told broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. “This hasn’t come out of the blue, but now this dilemma is really clear – this question of having equal distance to both parties… might look good on paper, but means at least under the conditions that eastern German parliaments are in that they face not having a majority and are unable to form a government.”
Wolfgang Schäuble, the president of the Bundestag and the CDU’s former finance minister, called Thuringia a “catastrophe” that had highlighted the straitjacket in which the CDU finds itself, dealing with two parties with problematic associations – the AfD with the far right, and Die Linke with the regime of communist former East Germany.
“It’s completely right … to say there will be no form of cooperation with the AfD, because this party does not sufficiently distant itself from positions and groups that we really can have nothing to do with,” he told Die Zeit. “At the same time the CDU … against the backdrop of the past, is not prepared to enter a coalition with Die Linke. Now we have a situation where the AfD and Die Linke have more than 50% [of the vote] … and a government must be enabled, if necessary a minority government, like we see in other European states.”
The CDU’s Julia Klöckner, who has been agriculture minister since 2018, said the party’s rejection of the AfD did not mean it would jump into the arms of Die Linke. “If you look at Die Linke’s party programme it’s societally and economically completely different to ours.” She said current members of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, had suffered at the hands of Die Linke’s Communist party predecessors. “Among their members still are those who put people in prisons during the GDR. I think that cannot be ignored,” she told Deutschlandfunk.
The SPD meanwhile warned the CDU on Wednesday that it would be prepared to withdraw from the coalition if, as has been speculated, Merkel were to be prematurely ousted as chancellor ahead of the next scheduled federal election by October 2021.
Of the potential successors to Kramp-Karrenbauer – who had been chosen by Merkel as a future chancellor to carry on her legacy – Friedrich Merz, a former investment banker, and the health minister, Jens Spahn, have officially thrown their hats into the ring.
On Tuesday night Merz pledged to “integrate those on the margins into the centre of the party”.
Spahn said on Wednesday: “I’ve always said I’m ready to take on the responsibility.”
Asked by a magazine whether he thought it would be a pioneering achievement to be Germany’s first gay chancellor, Spahn responded: “Would it not be a pioneering achievement if such questions were no longer asked?”
The other candidate is expected to be Armin Laschet, the premier of North Rhine-Westphalia and a close Merkel ally.
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