January 26, 2022 - 8:00am
It’s not often you see conservative hardliners cry in public, but Friedrich Merz visibly fought back tears last weekend as he accepted the leadership of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at their party conference. For years, Merz had been one of Angela Merkel’s staunchest critics — from within her own ranks. Now he says he wants to lift the party and Germany out from under the ex-chancellor’s “inaction and lack of leadership that has for years enveloped the country like a carpet of fog.”
Angela Merkel became chair of the CDU in 2000. After such a long period under her leadership, the party is now crying out for change. The conference delegates confirmed an earlier vote for Merz by the grassroots members with an astonishing 95%, driving the man to tears. They had previously rejected him twice for this role, but now, it seems, the party collective are putting their trust in him.
Merz is under no illusion that there is a lot to do. The 66-year old lawyer has called the state of conservative politics in Germany “sobering”: under Merkel’s centrist political instincts, her party, originally a socially conservative and economically liberal force, has become increasingly social democratic in outlook, blurring the lines with the rival SPD party. This tendency found its pinnacle in the grand coalitions which Merkel ran for three out of her four terms. It became so hard to distinguish the two parties that Olaf Scholz of the SPD was able to win the 2021 election on a continuity ticket, selling himself as a like-for-like Merkel replacement despite standing for a rival party.
Merz has been critical of his party’s shift to the centre-Left throughout, building a reputation as an old-fashioned hardliner who pokes fun at the politically correct while unflinchingly criticising the “appalling image projected by the government” led by his own party.
Lacking profile throughout Merkel’s long tenure, in 2021, the CDU lost nearly two million voters to the SPD and over 1 million each to the Greens, the Free Liberals (FDP) and into non-voting apathy. Over 400,000 votes also went to the Alternative for Germany (AfD) on the far Right. “But such times are over,” Merz promised the hopeful conference, as he promised a period of ‘‘renewal’. The message seems to have cut through. In a Spiegel survey, two thirds of respondents agreed that Merz election as chair constituted a ‘clear break from the Merkel era’.
If Merz can pull this off and reshape the CDU as the opposing pole to the Left-liberal coalition led by Olaf Scholz, he can offer a real alternative for voters. But the new leader’s biggest obstacle in creating meaningful opposition and reshaping the party may be himself. A staunch Catholic, multimillionaire and former BlackRock executive, he can come across as aloof, even arrogant. In his long political life which spans back to the beginning of his parliamentary career in 1994, he has never been a particularly charismatic leader. As a result, recent surveys still show low approval ratings of only 17% and the majority of people do not believe that he can pull the CDU out of its current crisis.
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SubscribeGiven, as you describe, that under Merkel the CDU has been gutted of any fundamental principles or vision on the future of Germany and shifted radically to the Green-Left, it will be interesting to see how Merz sets about restoring the Party’s credentials as a Liberal Conservative force in the country.
For the moment at least, Merz seems content with distancing himself from the right wing of his own Party, in the shape of the “WerteUnion” and, of course, from the “far-right AfD” – which suggests that very little has changed.
This was also Merkel’s abiding obsession.
And such is the sorry compliant state of the overwhelmingly Leftist/Woke German media, that he will be facing a daunting task.
To be on the “right” in Germany is akin to professing to advocate racism, sexism, transphobia, banning all immigration, Islamophobia and all the other perceived transgressions against the wokeist ideology, which has now captured most realms of German society.
Amen to that…
“Merkel seems in favour of a de-Merkelisation”
i don’t think she cares at all about the future of her party. She actually seems to have fulfilled her goal of destroying the CDU of Adenauer/Erhard/Kohl. She is responsible not only for the destruction of her own party, but will be remembered in German history for helping to get the SPD/Greens into government, who will end her work to finish off the industrial strength of Germany. She after all started the crazy energy policies of the “Energiewende”, being even more dependant on Russia’s gas as the last perfectly working nuclear plants will be closed. One can’t help thinking that she was planted into Germany politics by the former Soviet Union.
i don’t think she cares at all about the future of her party.
The prototype for other childless egomaniacs with no vision for the future beyond themselves. I’m prepared for the downvotes for making this unpopular observation.
Agreed. Merkel was never really a member of the CDU, As you say, she merely used it as vehicle to maintain power and pursue her own Green agenda.
if the CDU goes too right wing, I can see it taking the same path as Les Républicains did after Macron’s victory. That is, gradually moving away from moderate voters without being able to reconquer the conservative electorate from the AfD. Whenever you’re presented with 2 options, you’ll probably choose the original rather than the copy. If anti immigration voters have to pick between the AfD and a new Merzite CDU, I think the AfD holds far more legitimacy on that particular ground.
“if the CDU goes too right wing…”
Very little chance of that happening. The campaign again Otte demonstrates that unequivocally.