Members of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have elected stalwart rightwinger Friedrich Merz as their designated new leader, as the conservative party seeks a new direction in opposition following the departure of Angela Merkel.
Merz, who has twice come second to centrist candidates in previous leadership races, won a surprise majority in the ballot, beating Merkel’s former chief of staff Helge Braun and foreign policy specialist Norbert Röttgen with 62% of the vote, thus eliminating the need for a run-off vote.
The vote comes as the rudderless behemoth of German politics is seeking to reinvent itself after crashing to the worst result in its history at September’s federal elections, in which Social Democrat Olaf Scholz was elected as Merkel’s successor in a power-sharing deal with the Greens and the Free Democratic party (FDP).
For the first time in its history, the CDU decided to hand a say over its future leadership to its 400,000 members, of which 248,360 participated by postal and digital ballot.
The party members’ vote is not binding and will have to be confirmed by CDU delegates at a party summit scheduled for 21 and 22 January.
One of the central questions for the post-Merkel era will be how the CDU seeks an answer to the enduring strength of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the states of the formerly socialist east that were once firmly in the hands of the centre-right.
Merz has previously promised that a conservative realignment of his party could win back voters who have drifted off to the AfD, rather than embolden the rightwing party.
His two competitors on the ballot both hailed from the liberal wing of the conservative party and promised to continue Merkel’s centrist course on the domestic stage.
Helge Braun, a 49-year-old medical doctor who gained 12% of votes, had served as Merkel’s chief of staff and minister for special affairs during her last term in office and took on a prominent role in coordinating pandemic measures.
Norbert Röttgen, 56, who came second with 25.8%, is a former environment minister who was fired from Merkel’s cabinet in 2012 after failing in a run to become state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia. He subsequently rebuilt his profile as chair of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, in which he called on the government to take a more confrontational stance in dealings with Russia and China.
Röttgen, who lost out to outgoing leader Armin Laschet in the CDU leadership earlier this year, had pitched himself as the modernising candidate, arguing the conservative party needed to rejuvenate its image to stay relevant. Both he and Braun had vowed to pick a woman as the party’s next general secretary.
For Merz, it was the third attempt to seize control of the political party that has governed Germany for longer than any other. A favourite with the CDU’s ageing membership, he twice ran out of steam in runoff votes, against Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer in 2018 and to Laschet in January this year.
Having previously pitched himself as the “anti-Merkel” candidate by promising to restrict Germany’s immigration rules – even once suggesting scrapping the constitutional guarantee to asylum – Merz has tried to strike a more consensual tone at his third attempt.
In a debate in the run-up to the membership vote, Merz promised the CDU under his leadership would speak to both Wählerinnen und Wählern, female and male voters, and even showed a reluctant openness towards a quota for female-held posts in the party.
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