The German Christian Democrats have been familiarizing themselves for weeks with the need to elect a successor to the hapless candidate for Chancellor and party chairman Armin Laschet since the lost federal election on September 26th. Now the victorious Social Democrats are also looking for new top staff. Yesterday, party leader Norbert Walter-Borjans announced that he did not want to run again at the party conference in December.
Walter-Borjans, who has only formed the dual leadership of the SPD with Saskia Esken since 2019, said in an interview with the “Rheinische Post”: “For me, the chairmanship was not associated with any further career planning from the outset, but the goal of opening the party To bring course. ” He sees this goal as having been achieved: “With this mission I have come so far that I can say: Now it is time for younger people to work.” Walter-Borjans had therefore asked the board of his North Rhine-Westphalian state association to forego his renewed nomination. He left with the “good feeling that he had helped shape the SPD for two years”.
Walter-Borjans and Esken had defeated the later SPD candidate for chancellor and probably the new German head of government Olaf Scholz in a member survey in the race for party leadership in 2019.
The 69-year-old still kept a low profile about the possible successor to the party leadership. However, he did not believe that the party leadership would become part of the new traffic light cabinet: “A member of the government as a party leader is necessarily always a piece of government spokesman,” said Walter-Borjans.
Even at the CDU, it is still unclear who will be at the top in the future. Laschet himself speaks of a new start in terms of personnel, he wants to “moderate” the process. At the weekend, the first thing to do is to hold a conference of the more than 300 district chairpersons. This should make a preliminary decision as to whether the election of the new CDU boss will take place in the form of a member survey. The federal executive committee will make the final decision on November 2nd.
Five possible candidates
Possible applicants for the party leadership include the economic politician Friedrich Merz, among others Health Minister Jens Spahn, the foreign politician Norbert Röttgen, parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus and the economic politician Carsten Linnemann.
