Chancellor candidate: Söder factor forces CDU candidates to adopt a new strategy

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Just three weeks before the CDU party conference, which is to take place digitally on January 16 and culminates in the election of a new chairman, miraculous things are happening.

Armin Laschet, for example, the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia and one of three candidates for the post of party leader, seems to have taken pleasure in exercising humility.

Before Christmas, he apologized to the citizens who could no longer see their dying relatives in March and April because the nursing and old people's homes had been sealed off due to Corona.

He asked the students and parents to forgive the school closings.

He called both "wrong".

On Tuesday, Laschet continued the Sorry series and spoke in the “Kölner Stadtanzeiger” of a “duty” to ask the victims of Cologne's New Year's Eve five years ago to forgive the state for not being able to protect them.

Laschet was not yet Prime Minister at all.

NRW Prime Minister Laschet on the current Corona situation

Corona vaccinations, lockdown and the new virus mutation.

See how Prime Minister Armin Laschet said about the current situation in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Source: WORLD

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It goes with his humble tone that he put the question into perspective when asked whether he, as a possible CDU leader, would claim the Union's candidacy for chancellor.

He recently announced that he could also imagine CSU boss Markus Söder.

“If a CDU chairman would rule out the possibility of a CSU chairman, that is not part of the fairness we need,” he said at an event where he presented a biography of the Bavarian Prime Minister.

A CDU boss, Laschet continued, should generally show respect for the sister party and say: “Both are conceivable.” The question does not have to be decided so quickly anyway.

Laschet named the period after the state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate in March.

In doing so, he met the wish that the CSU has been expressing for months.

Even Merz is more defensive

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The current chairwoman, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, however, had always urged more haste and, on such occasions, always addressed the election of the CDU chief as a clear preliminary determination for the candidate for chancellor.

In June she said, for example: “We will first redefine the chairmanship of the CDU.

From our point of view, he has the first right to the candidacy for chancellor. ”Also in October, she spoke of the“ wish that this question be resolved quickly and that debates are ended ”.

But the successor candidates are now all being weighed down.

Foreign politician Norbert Röttgen is just as ready to decide on the candidate question in the spring as is ex-parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz.

He was "more of the opinion that we should decide that soon," said Merz on Monday.

"But there are also good arguments to say that we should do this together with the CSU at a somewhat later point in time."

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And on the question of the candidate for chancellor Merz was more defensive than before.

The Union is facing a very tough federal election campaign.

"That is why the headline is above everything: What is the optimal setup, both in terms of personnel and content for both parties - CDU and CSU."

Before anything is proclaimed, the CDU and CSU would talk to each other.

“I'm not one of those who say: access rights.

Nobody has a right of access. ”In July Merz had brought himself into play as Chancellor of a black-green government.

However, Norbert Röttgen was the first to declare in the summer that it would be a “huge achievement” for the entire Union if, after 16 years of the CDU in the Chancellery, a CSU politician moved in.

Röttgen indicated that he was satisfied with the party leadership alone.

In the meantime, this strategy is evidently proving to be so tactically smart that it is being copied by the other two candidates.

The two personnel issues are closely related

Söder has many fans in the CDU.

And there will be more rather than less.

This contributed to the fact that, despite or because of the constant postponement of the election, none of the three applicants emerged as the clear favorite.

Most recently, Röttgen was able to gain ground in surveys among CDU supporters.

He ends up in second place behind Merz and in front of Laschet.

For example in an internal vote of the Junge Union.

When he applied at the beginning of the year, no one had believed him capable of doing that.

In addition, the question of the candidate for chancellor is now clearly in focus.

One thing is certain: in January 2021, many CDU party congress delegates will base their decision on their new boss on whom they favor as candidate for chancellor.

The Söder fans in the CDU would have had to choose Röttgen so far to be reasonably sure that Söder would be a candidate.

Some speculated that Laschet might not be strong enough to prevent Söder.

But that was a rather vague prospect.

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According to the latest statements, the delegates can actually expect all three of them to approach Söder.

However, the change in strategy in the case of Laschet and Merz comes very late.

It is questionable whether that will still work.

In an interview with WELT, the Federal Government's Eastern Commissioner, Marco Wanderwitz (CDU), said that many supporters had now “puzzled” because Merz had made it clear that he wanted both the chairmanship and the candidacy for chancellor.

“The group of those who consider Markus Söder to be the best candidate for chancellor has grown considerably in Saxony in the past weeks and months.

I also belong to this group. "

Söder is particularly popular in the east, and anyway in the south.

But even in the north, he gained sympathy with the corona crisis.

A week ago, Schleswig-Holstein's Prime Minister Daniel Günther WELT said: “It is obviously paying off that Markus Söder is a successful Prime Minister.

Many people honor that, not only in the south of the country, by the way, but also here in the north. "

Therefore, Söder will have a very important say in the question of who will be the Union’s candidate for chancellor in the Bundestag.

Günther supports Laschet in the election to the CDU boss.

The greatest doubt as to whether he would really be willing to renounce the candidacy for chancellor is certainly in the case of Merz;

even after his recent remarks.

They also contain a striking tell-tale remark.

When asked whether Söder could be Chancellor, Merz said: “There are at least two Prime Ministers in Germany who, based on the job description, are always eligible.

These are the North Rhine-Westphalian and the Bavarian. "

However - never in the history of the Federal Republic has a Minister-President from Bavaria or North Rhine-Westphalia become Chancellor.