Familiar faces as Germany’s CDU begins another leadership race

For the third time in as many years Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has started the hunt for a new party chairperson.

And for the third time in as many years Friedrich Merz, a 66-year-old multi-millionaire lawyer popular with party conservatives, insists he is the best man for the job.

Ahead of Wednesday’s deadline for applications, Mr Merz joined the race to lead the centre-right party – most likely into opposition after September’s historic election disaster.

Mr Merz and two rivals to date have six weeks to convince a majority of the CDU’s 406,000 party members to back them ahead of a party conference in January.

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At a campaign launch event on Tuesday in Berlin, Mr Merz tackled head-on the main stumbling block of his previous two leadership runs: claims he would end the CDU’s centrist position throughout the 18-year Merkel era.

“With me there will be no right-wing shift in the CDU, no axis shift,” promised Mr Merz.

Next year marks 20 years since Angela Merkel sidelined Mr Merz as her ambitious party deputy, prompting his departure from the CDU – and political life.

He made a comeback in 2018 when Dr Merkel decided to end her 18-year run as leader, but lost out to the chancellor’s chosen successor.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer had a luckless run as leader, however, and announced her resignation after 14 months. Pandemic difficulties meant the CDU was unable to choose a new leader – Armin Laschet – until last January.

He led the party’s federal election campaign and, after September’s election debacle, Mr Laschet has promised to stand down when a new leader is chosen.

Membership vote

In a first, the new CDU chairperson will be chosen by a membership vote – and not by party delegates. The latter practice ensured CDU grandees and Merkel loyalists were able to form an alliance against Mr Merz, according to his supporters.

On Tuesday Mr Merz did little to rebut the persistent rumour that he is running to get even with Dr Merkel. In an apparent dig at her leadership style, Mr Merz promised subscribers to his newsletter on Tuesday that the CDU would regain power only with solid politics and “not by surfing elegantly on the wave of the zeitgeist”.

Tuesday’s event brought a second dig, promising that a Merz-led CDU would have “a clearer profile”.

Acknowledging a final objection, that he will be 70 at the next election, Mr Merz presented himself as frontman alongside two junior party colleagues.

His two rivals to date for the top job are political veterans: Norbert Röttgen, a CDU foreign policy spokesman, and Helge Braun, Dr Merkel’s outgoing chief of staff. Both are centrists in the Merkel tradition and, at 56 and 49 respectively, are younger than Mr Merz.

Asked last month what kind of leader the CDU needs now, its youth wing head Tilman Kuban said: “Above all, we need more young, fresh faces.”