On Monday morning, the CDU chairman Armin Laschet has to take the difficult course of a chancellor candidate who has disappointed his party friends.

First the CDU presidium meets, then the board of directors in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus.

Laschet doesn't have to wait for the critical voices to be heard behind closed doors.

Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn, who is also deputy federal chairman and who worked as the number two of the team when Laschet applied for party chairmanship, had already spoken through the magazine Der Spiegel.

Timo Frasch

Political correspondent in Munich.

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Eckart Lohse

Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.

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He called for the CDU to be rejuvenated.

"The next generation after Angela Merkel must now ensure that we find our old strength in the next decade." The CDU has the people for this, "we have to make them responsible now".

One can imagine what that sounds like for a 60-year-old candidate for chancellor.

Spahn affirmed that the Union should lead a government.

Like Laschet, he points out that the election results of the SPD and Union are only marginally apart.

The Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer is not as gracious as Spahn.

He flatly denies that the CDU and CSU have a government mandate.

Laschet tries to take pressure off the boiler

Laschet knows that he now has to quickly take the pressure off the boiler to appease his party friends and show that he is taking responsibility for the disaster. It was soon reported from the board meeting that the chairman had admitted “personal mistakes in the election campaign, including organizational ones”. At the press conference after the committee meetings, the beginning of which has been delayed considerably, General Secretary Paul Ziemiak and Laschet will announce that the mistakes in the party will be dealt with, not only at the top, but also at the district and local level. “Relentless,” says Ziemiak.

Laschet then tries to correct the impression he made on Sunday evening that he claims to form the government. It could have seemed like he didn't understand the extent of the defeat. In public he repeats what he had already said on the board. No party can derive a claim to government from the election results. Laschet says that even with 25 percent you don't have the right to say you are the next chancellor. This means the SPD, which ended up 1.6 percentage points ahead of the Union.

Laschet uses the small distance between the two parties to support the thesis that it is not clear who was commissioned to form a government.

You have to be ready to form a government.

He's been saying that since Sunday evening.

The fact that Angela Merkel derived her claim to become Chancellor in 2005 at the beginning of her 16-year term in office from an even narrower lead over the SPD is not mentioned.

Ready if the traffic light coalition does not materialize

Around noon, when the committees are still in session, there is a certain amount of confusion.

A message from the meeting was carried to the outside world - by no means from a Laschet critic - that gave the impression that Laschet was letting the social democratic candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz go first when attempting to form a government with the Greens and the FDP.

"We are ready for other constellations if the traffic lights don't work," Laschet is quoted as saying.

Shortly afterwards, in the press conference, Laschet and his people counter the impression that this means that the Union will only become active when the efforts of the SPD have failed.

Rather, they are already talking to the FDP and the Greens.

Laschet says he has the support of the party presidium for talks with the Greens and the FDP.