Merkel succession: a disturbing and dangerous competition

reThe CDU dares something new. Something completely new. This novelty will be folded in less than two weeks in the manner of the dialogue boxes in front of the delegates of the party congress in Hamburg. If the order is triggered, each of the 1001 party members is arrested or even forced to unfold the cardboard on which is "the voting booth" and bury it behind. This will be the moment when the CDU elects its new leader or new leader.

"It is an attempt to establish legal certainty," said federal executive Klaus Schüler at the podium. The CDU has never used these models before. Party leaders are also semi-openly elected by Christian Democrats. Since there is usually only one candidate, all you have to do is protect your hand in front of the ballot, fold it and throw it in the ballot box.

The argument of "legal certainty" is of course not a lie. Even if it puts the previous procedure in a bad light. But that could be something else. In fact, no one should be able to watch his neighbor for whom he decides. Whether for Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Friedrich Merz or Jens Spahn. Or one of 14 other candidates for the post of party leader.

Unlike the three mentioned, who were named by the party affiliations, they all came in. It works. Also in Hamburg. The presence of this number will therefore appear only after the expiry of the two-hour deadline for the submission of applications, around 7 December, at noon.

So many choices have never been. The fear that delegates may unduly influence the voting decisions of their neighbors or even put them on hand for this reason is well founded. That's why the table cabins. The CDU is nervous. And that's because of the behavior of the candidates. After all, after the fourth of eight regional conferences, it is clear that the three promising candidates will not be able to simulate a debate. This entails risks for the party.

The three candidates were caught off guard by the announcement of the withdrawal of Angela Merkel. Therefore, none of them brought a completed campaign, no one entered the conflict clearly. At first, it gave hope that everyone would come in the coming weeks simply as a kind of independent style offer. It was like that too. Merz and Spahn, who were the first to publicly declare their candidacy, even invoked similar slogans. "Start and renewal" at Merz, "restart" at Spahn.

Kramp-Karrenbauer learned this and failed to put a slogan to his candidacy a week later. With continuity despite the change, his concerns would probably be better described. All three were initially interested in cultivating the models that were badigned to them. Spahn entrusted to Merz, the young and impartial provocateur, Merz, the innocent and politically aware of Kramp-Karrenbauer the political decisions taken over the past ten years, the close bond that united them to his party, the largest proof of the political climate in the smallest country.

To date, none of the candidates have taken the opportunity to present themselves with a potential general secretary. This is not surprising given the lack of a long-standing campaign. All three simply do not have the sovereignty and status to badume the responsibility of a number two.

The advantage that expanding content or the profiling badociated with such a person might bring is more likely to pose a risk. Even if the good organization of the regional conferences and congress suggests the opposite: the search for a new boss of the CDU remains an improvised task.

Therefore, the CDU currently has no idea how to evaluate their consequences for the party. Obviously: the dispute is hardening. If the three men first insisted that they were just to each other and wanted to do everything in their power not to polarize the party, only the first part of this wish is vaild. The debate is always loyal, but it is at least unknown to the party, sometimes disturbing, even dangerous.

Alternatively, candidates faced each other harder than expected. They also became personal. Kramp-Karrenbauer's reaction to Merz's accusation that the CDU had "shrugged" during the rise of the AfD was particularly striking.

As a "slap in the face", she characterized this by reference to all those who had participated in the election campaigns against the AfD. It was obvious that she thought this for herself, after all, she had pushed her to win her last election in Saarland with 40%, while the AfD had landed at 6%. When Merz said that he had dared to halve the AfD, she said: "One guy has dared … The other has proven it's the difference." "

A certain sensitivity is revealed

The last sentence should not have been too much, says one at the CDU board meeting on Monday. Others have provoked Merz with. "Where was Friedrich Merz, as we struggled again and again internally to deal with the AfD," asks Karin Prien, Schleswig-Holstein's Education Minister, on Twitter. As you can imagine, many delegates. The remark was probably Merz's biggest tactical mistake so far.

Spahn and Kramp-Karrenbauer have already clashed. What Kramp-Karrenbauer repeated their long-time negative attitude towards marriage for all, resumed Spahn. This has him, who is married to a man, "personally" met.

Some sensitivity is now apparent. For example, Merz launched a political debate on the right to asylum at the Thuringia Regional Conference. When he did not run as he had probably imagined and as his competitors clearly separated him, he pulled back; but not without blaming the media. He was ready to "explain one or the other again, if it overwhelms one or the other of the journalists", he said the next day in Saxony-Anhalt . "This is not a good style," commented Monday a board member.

Kramp-Karrenbauer, who had initially kept a cool head, apparently could not hear much. In an interview with the spark media group on November 10, she responded to the hint that she was considered a "mini-Merkel": "Something does not challenge me." Last Saturday, she said in front of the Senior Citizens Union in Magdeburg: "There is nothing tiny about me!" If she were a man, such comparisons would not be done at all.

At regional conferences, there is still no evidence of camp formation. On social media, Merz fans hit Kramp Karrenbauer's fans. One threat the other with the withdrawal of the party. Spahn supporters are in the minority. Practically too, the three-man fight turns out to be a duel.

Armin Laschet, Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, fears that such spontaneous statements of opinion will become a trend: "Even after the elections, the party must remain united, there will also be losers at this congress." It is all the more important for everyone involved in the competition to be ready to continue working for the CDU.

This is an invitation not to leave a scorched earth. Only Spahn has already declared to want to work for a defeat in the first place of the CDU. He did not subordinate his position as minister or president of a party to a winning bid. Unlike Kramp-Karrenbauer. She does not just leave her office as secretary general, she does not want to take it back. Even as a minister, she would not be available. Only "honorary", she wanted to continue working for the party.

Merz has so far announced that the inevitable, namely, in the case of his election to the presidency of the CDU, his numerous positions on the Supervisory Board and his cabinet. lawyers. We do not know if he wants to play an active role in the CDU. Kramp-Karrenbauer asked him in a touch of Keckheit to turn his tax return on a mobile phone coaster application.

The fact that the dispute goes far beyond the stylistic issues and raises many fundamental questions causes the CDU to be sweaty. Even if it is "inspired" by the selection, as the Bundleister Schüler says, it strives so eagerly to avoid the impression of being split into warehouses.

Disputes? "It's a sports competition"

"This is not a fight!", Insists the Minister of Agriculture, Julia Klöckner. "Polarization? It's far away. It's a sporting competition, "said Thomas Strobl, Baden-Württemberg's Minister of the Interior.

He can not yet recognize that a split is under way, said former Bundestag President Norbert Lammert. But then sends: "But all the badumptions that underpin this evaluation are not realized." And Klaus Schüler admits: "As you are always smarter after." All three have the "will and the ability to bring the party together." ". Do not you really have to merge what has already been separated? Eventually, the booths are closed – and the CDU members have to look at each other again.