The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the governing party of Germany, is electing a new leader this week.
Long-serving and current German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was the party’s leader between 2000 and 2018, being succeeded by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who resigned last year (although she has stayed in the post until the party elects a new leader).
The CDU has dominated German politics since the end of World War II, as has Merkel in the 21st century. The CDU has been in government for 50 of the past 70 years. The first chancellor of West Germany, Konrad Adenauer, was from the CDU. Post-war Germany’s three longest-serving chancellors have all been from the CDU – Adenauer, Merkel, and Helmut Kohl.
It currently governs Germany in a grand coalition with the Social Democratic Party, with elections due in September this year. The CDU is currently polling at 35%, far ahead of its rivals, but many in the CDU are concerned that it could lose much support with the departure of Merkel as chancellor.
The three candidates to succeed Kramp-Karrenbauer are Armin Laschet, the minister-president (equivalent to premier) of North Rhone-Westphalia; Friedrich Merz, the leader of the CDU in the German Parliament, the Bundestag; and Norbert Röttgen, a member of the Bundestag and former deputy leader of the party.
According to the Financial Times there is not much to choose between the candidates. There seems to be broad consensus on the major issues of the day, such as climate change and Europe.
The leader will be elected at a digital congress to be held this weekend. Opinion polls among CDU voters show that Merz and Röttgen are the two favourites, but it remains to be seen whether this is reflected in this weekend’s result.
Merkel has said that she will not seek a fifth term as chancellor, ending an era of German politics which she dominated. Merkel was the third-longest-serving German chancellor, after Otto von Bismarck (Chancellor of the German Empire) and Kohl, who served as chancellor of West Germany from 1982 to 1990 and of the reunified Germany from 1990 to 1998.
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