All the viral turmoil in Merkel’s CDU
The CDU Congress postponed, tensions between candidates and reflections on the general political framework in Germany. The insight of Mennitti from Berlin
The only certain thing is that there is no certainty. Covid also blows the heart of German politics, blowing up for the second consecutive time the congress of the CDU, the party of Angela Merkel, which will have to choose the successor of the current president who has resigned since February – Annagret Kramp-Karrenbauer – and perhaps even the one who will succeed the chancellor at the head of the next government. It is not known when the Christian-Democratic assembly will meet and what the modalities will be. In mid-December, the management team will assess the situation of the pandemic and decide if the conditions are right for a digital congress on January 16, with an attached vote by post. Or will consider which alternatives are viable. A leap into the void.
And who knows how the three candidates will survive once again frozen for a few months: Armin Laschet, the favorite, struggling with the fight against the pandemic as president of North Rhine-Westphalia; Friedrich Merz, Merkel's eternal rival, returned to politics after a parenthesis in finance; Norbert Röttgen, the foreign expert, third wheel in search of a revival. Mutual relations are very bad and reflect a laceration in the CDU that only Angela Merkel's return to the scene as a result of the pandemic crisis has allowed to quell. After a furious quarrel behind the scenes, without reaching an agreement on the postponement of the congress, it was the turn of the close group captured by Kramp-Karrenbauer to make a decision.
Not a good sign to the outside. All the more so as none of the three contenders today enjoys great popularity among German voters. Laschet has so far not proven himself up to par in the management of the virus in his Land. Merz is discounting suspicions about his past in the American investment firm BlackRock and cannot shake off the political patina of the nineties. Röttgen remains evanescent, he tried to take the scene a little with the Belarusian crisis, which is certainly not a topic to warm the heart of the average German too much. Everyone would like Jens Spahn, the Minister of Health who is leading the country with a firm hand in the pandemic crisis and who at the moment, ironically, is in isolation for having contracted the virus. But he himself pulled out of contention, throwing his weight (which has now become substantial) on Laschet.
He could always come in handy as a candidate for chancellery, if Laschet feels he has little chance of victory and the CDU needs a winning card to counter the aspirations of Markus Söder, the president of Bavaria and CSU, the Bavarian twin party. Or the pandemic will have messed up the cards so much that in the end the three official candidates will have worn out to the point of automatically leaving room for the Minister of Health. However, a difficult hypothesis, given the charge of ambition, revenge and sometimes arrogance that Laschet, Merz and Röttgen are showing in this competition.
In fact, at the moment the rags fly. The postponement was not painless. Laschet had requested it in a Sunday interview with Welt. Merz strongly opposed it, immediately asking for a digital congress. A survey carried out among the members of the CDU sees the latter largely in advantage, but the 1001 delegates will vote for the new president: cadres and leaders of a party managed for twenty years by Angela Merkel and who see Laschet as a guarantee of continuity.
The mood of the militants could, however, change the balance. For this Merz wanted to exploit the moment and Laschet to buy time. The latter actually won and now Merz denounces that a part of the establishment is maneuvering to prevent its success. Threaten a petition to have members elect the president. And in a harsh interview with Welt, he points the finger at the chancellery. Indeed, Angela Merkel already had a great role in Kramp-Karrenbauer's victory against Merz, in the congress two years ago. The rust between the two has lasted for years and this congress, like the previous one, will in fact be a clash between Merkel and Merz, between those who want to preserve their legacy in tomorrow's CDU and those who intend to send it to the attic once and for all.
How much all this can affect the country's political balance is not clear. At the moment, all attention is focused on the second wave of the pandemic, an event which, moreover, accentuates the spotlight on the Chancellor, who has so far managed the emergency very effectively. And this time too, thanks to her scientific expertise, Merkel does not seem willing to observe an exponential growth in infections without acting. He brought forward by two days the summit with the presidents of the regions, which will be held on Wednesday. Rumors are already circulating in the newspapers about the "lockdown light" that he will try to impose on the riotous presidents and which looks a lot like what the Italian prime minister announced last Sunday for his country: closure of restaurants and bars, suspension of artistic performances ( theaters, concerts, probably cinemas, perhaps museums), but schools open except in the regions where the infections should reach catastrophic numbers and shops accessible under strict safety and hygiene measures.
With the return of the pandemic emergency, the rest of politics takes a back seat. No one can predict whether today's polls will be the same on the eve of the political vote, which should be held in a year's time. If we voted tomorrow, there would be no doubts about a change of course with a black-green government, between the Union of CDU and CSU and the Grünen. And the chancellor would be an exponent of the Union: Söder or the new president of the CDU. But in extraordinary times what is current today is not necessarily the case in a few months. It applies to the general political framework and to that of the CDU. The time of the pandemic is actually a suspended time for politics.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/tutti-i-subbugli-virali-nella-cdu-di-merkel/ on Tue, 27 Oct 2020 06:50:53 +0000.