Laschet given chance to seize German chancellorship in next elections

Munich (dpa) – Germany’s governing conservatives have chosen Armin Laschet to lead them into the next elections in September, putting him in prime position to succeed outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The choice ends a long and tortuous process for Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), to find a possible successor to Merkel, who has been in power for over 15 years.

A consensus politician who is currently CDU leader and premier of the state of North Rhine Westphalia, Laschet secured the support of his own party in an overnight vote.

Then on Tuesday, his rival Markus Soeder from the CSU conceded.

“The die is cast. Armin Laschet will be the chancellor candidate for the Union,” Soeder said on Tuesday, referring to the CDU/CSU grouping.

Speaking alongside Soeder, CSU Secretary General Markus Blume said Soeder had been the “candidate of the hearts,” in what was taken partly as a jibe at Soeder’s national poll ratings, which have been consistently far higher than Laschet’s.

Laschet for his part thanked Soeder and the CSU for placing their trust in his leadership after the intense battle. “Through discussion you can see the life of a democracy,” said Laschet, who is seen as a centrist figure who prefers compromise to confrontation.

“Laschet is the right chancellor for Germany,” said CDU secretary general Paul Ziemiak.

Merkel – who stayed far from the contest between Soeder and Laschet – congratulated the winner and said: “I look forward to working together in the coming months.”

Laschet will now go into the elections as the centre-right bloc’s joint candidate for chancellor.

As the biggest grouping in parliament and the leader in opinion polls, this could give him the first chance of forming the next government – with himself in the chancellor’s chair.

The immediate political challenge facing Laschet is stopping the CDU/CSU’s slide in the polls.

The bloc is under pressure ahead of the September vote, with surveys showing that less than 30 per cent of voters would choose them at election time.

A sense that the government – a coalition between the CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats – has lost direction during the coronavirus pandemic and a series of scandals have cost the parties support in recent months.

The Greens, who announced their chancellor candidate on Monday, are surging in second place at around 20 per cent.

The CDU/CSU’s current coalition allies are languishing in third with around 14-16 per cent.

The figures suggest that the CDU/CSU could be left out of a governing coalition in the protected negotiations that often follow Germany’s parliamentary elections.