On December 6, Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) held its party meeting to elect a leader to replace Angela Merkel when she steps down. Many observers had anticipated that Friedrich Merz, a politician and lobbyist who works with BlackRock, an American investment cooperation, would become Ms. Merkel’s successor.
Mr. Merz was supported by the anti-Merkel camp within the party, especially by those who backed a radical neoliberal agenda and expressed their opposition towards Ms. Merkel’s liberal migration and refugee policies. While many of Mr. Merz’s supporters already imagined a “new, conservative revolution”, leading media outlets such as Der Spiegel also hyped the candidate. Jens Spahn, Germany’s current Health Minister, was another candidate in the race.
However, both men lost the vote. The 56-year-old Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer — media already calls her ‘AKK’ — was elected the new leader. She is set to lead the CDU into the next federal election in 2021. The most powerful woman in the world, as Ms. Merkel has been described regularly, will be replaced by a woman. Unsurprisingly, AKK was also Ms. Merkel’s favourite.
To many people, her victory was a surprise. “I don’t support the conservatives anyway, but during the last months and years, I always had the feeling that many of them were tired of Angela Merkel and her policies, especially in the wake of the refugee crisis,” said Marco Tiel, 25, a student of political science in Stuttgart.
A different path
Actually, while many parts of Europe became more conservative and right-wing, Ms. Merkel chose a different path. For that reason, even people like former MIT professor and left-wing icon Noam Chomsky honoured her “morality” and described her as some kind of “last bastion of European liberalism”. It is to be seen if AKK will continue Ms. Merkel’s policies. However, for the Chancellor, who gave an emotional speech at her party’s meeting, AKK’s victory is already a big success. A few days ago, German tabloid BILD reported that there was a “secret plan” between Ms. Merkel and AKK to hand over the chancellorship to the new leader in 2020.
According to observers, it is possible that AKK will take over the government before the election. In such a case, she could benefit from working as the Chancellor before heading into the election. Focus , a conservative magazine, described such a scenario as a “bonus” for AKK.
But the magazine added that such plans were highly dependent on the CDU’s coalition partner, the Social Democrats. In recent years, Germany’s Social Democrats have become gradually weaker. Many of their voters, largely working class voters, have shifted their support either to the far-left Die Linke or the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The CDU is also losing its traditional voters. Many conservative voters and politicians have left the party in favour of the AfD. According to Wolfgang Patzelt, a political scientist known for his conservative views, the AfD will benefit from AKK’s victory. “They will portray her as Angela Merkel 2.0 and they will hope that the policies of the CDU will not change,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Patzelt, who teaches in Dresden, eastern Germany, also pointed out that Ms. Merkel’s CDU created a vacuum in the conservative political landscape that allowed the AfD to win support. The far-right will do everything that is necessary to fully occupy this vacuum, he added.
Emran Feroz is a freelance journalist based in Stuttgart, Germany.