The congress of the CDU opens Thursday, December 6 and should lead to the succession of the German Chancellor at the head of the party. With a woman in a privileged position, for the moment, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, secretary general of the CDU. But Friedrich Merz, who is back in politics, may well win. Presentation of the forces involved.
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Friedrich Merz or Jens Spahn. One of these three will succeed Angela Merkel at the head of the largest conservative party in Germany, the CDU, meeting in Congress from Thursday. The Chancellor was forced in October to abandon the head of the Conservative Party after a sequence of poor election results. The vote to appoint the new head of the CDU will take place Friday in Hamburg, where 1,001 delegates meet. Who are these three candidates and especially who is best placed among them?
1. AKK, the dauphine
The current secretary general of the party, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, is nicknamed "AKK" . She is close to Angela Merkel. Head of the government of the small regional state of Sarre since 2011, this 55-year-old woman represents a centrist line within her party. She explained at the end of August to Ouest-France, and to our German partner the group Die Funke, the strategy of his party for the next European elections.
Bride and mother of three, this graduate in political science and public law was noticed when she managed to keep her region at the CDU in the regional elections of March 2017. Still little known at the federal level, without experience the national ministerial, it enjoys strong support within the CDU.
The Chancellor has given it a key role in the recent negotiations that resulted in a coalition agreement with the Social Democrats. AKK has the experience of big coalitions with the left center. She herself runs the Saarland with the Social Democrats for a second consecutive term.
2. Merz, the new darling of the CDU
Friedrich Merz could not oust Angela Merkel from the head of the CDU in 2002. Seven years later, he had left politics for the business world. This liberal in economics, rather conservative on societal issues, wants to convince the most right-wing voters of his party not to succumb to the sirens of the extreme right, represented by the Alternative Party for Germany (AfD), which has entered the Bundestag last September. His right-wing positions should also facilitate relations with the Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU) of the stormy Interior Minister Horst Seehofer.
Former German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, now Bundestag Speaker, the Parliamentary Assembly, on Wednesday officially backed Friedrich Merz. "A majority in favor of Merz would be good for the country," Wolfgang Schäuble told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . "He is a man who sends clear messages, who has clear ideas, who has the courage not to wait for the end of a debate (to express himself) but which instead dominates this debate," he said. he added, barely veiled critic of Angela Merkel. It must be said that the current Chancellor had dethroned in the final straight of the estate of Helmut Kohl while the party was stuck in several cases.
Reconverted into a business lawyer, since 2016 he also heads the controlling body of the German subsidiary of BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world.
3. Jens Spahn, the slayer turned outsider
The third presidential candidate for the party is Health Minister Jens Spahn, who has sharply criticized Angela Merkel's migration policy. The Chancellor had appointed him in February 2018 Minister in the hope of calming a growing sling of the right wing of his movement. He was then the main opponent of Angela Merkel's centrist political course.
Jens Spahn, 37, was only secretary of state in the outgoing government, Finance. This man, married for a year with a person in charge of the people magazine Bunte , is fighting for a conservative shift in the CDU, particularly on identity issues. In the race for Angela Merkel's succession, he seems to be one of the three candidates least in a position to win according to the German media.