analysis
If everything goes according to plan, the CDU and CSU will elect Friedrich Merz as their candidate for chancellor in late summer. It could be a good year for the opposition leader. Why? Three good reasons for this – and three small reservations.
One of the nice things in the life of an opposition leader is that he gets to fly in a government plane every now and then. He just has to find a day when the Chancellor or his ministers are not traveling the world and one of the Air Force’s aircraft is available.
Shortly before Christmas there was such an opportunity and Friedrich Merz flew to Paris. Emmanuel Macron received him. There are a few nice photos of them sinking into black leather sofas and chatting with each other, the President of the Fifth Republic and the still unfinished man from the Sauerland.
Merz continued his foreign tour in the new year. This week he visited Sweden and Finland. It is not surprising that the CDU chairman is welcomed everywhere by heads of state and government. Ultimately, it is clear to all partners in Europe: This man has the best chance of becoming the next Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The CDU and CSU want to elect their candidate for chancellor in late summer. As of now, there is much to suggest that he will become the chairman of the joint parliamentary group. And so 2024 could be the year of Friedrich Merz. It could.
What speaks for it?
The CDU executive board will meet in Heidelberg for a closed meeting on Friday and Saturday. Merz will listen to what his party friends from their constituencies have to say. You will be given a bit of advice. And then adopt what Merz promised right at the beginning of his term as party leader: a new basic program. Merz didn’t just keep his word in this regard. The party appears united. The faction achieves opposition successes. He himself is now undisputed – and now has a general secretary at his side who suits him and believes in him. “Friedrich, you have to do this,” Carsten Linnemann recently said star required. It was about the candidacy for chancellor.
Merz himself knows that his efforts would not be reflected in good poll numbers if it weren’t for a certain Olaf Scholz and his traffic light coalition. The Union benefits because the government is unpopular. The FDP is arguing with itself. The Greens are mourning their own demands. And the SPD is starting the new year with an old social democratic tradition that its comrades have been resisting for two years: the dismantling of their own chancellor. Merz just has to watch and draw the right conclusions.
The topic trend also suits him. Farmers are protesting across the country. What a gift! The agricultural lobby was always a front-line organization for the Union. If any doubts arose about this at some point under Angela Merkel, it can now be easily corrected. The overall economic situation is even more important. In times of inflation and industrial crisis, Germans always rely on the Union when in doubt. Especially when the country’s highest court has just confirmed what Christian Democrats have always preached: Socialists simply can’t handle money – and liberals in coalitions with Socialists apparently can’t either.
What speaks against it?
A new state parliament will be elected in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia in the fall. From Berlin’s perspective, one quickly tends to summarize it simply as “the East chooses”. That would be too easy, the respective constellations are too different. For the CDU, however, all three elections could be a real torture; the AfD is currently far ahead in the three federal states.
And for Merz, who at times had more fans in the party in this part of the country than in his home association of North Rhine-Westphalia, the elections are about internal assertiveness. Forming a government in all three countries can be chaotic or even catastrophic – and Merz would not be the first CDU leader to fail to hold his business together in such a situation.
Only Markus Söder knows what Markus Söder is up to. And what exactly that is may change from day to day. The CSU boss is currently praising the new cooperation with the sister party. He denies any ambitions to run for chancellor again. And he’s working hard to become an early 21st-century pop culture figure on social media. So was that the ricochet for Merz from Bavaria? Yes my, the wuin mia first seng.
But the biggest risk for Friedrich Merz is Friedrich Merz. It was always like that, it stays that way. When everything is going great for him, he hits the ground running. Paschas, dentists, alternative for Germany with substance. Merz speaks from the hearts of many conservatives. In order to be successful in his candidacy for chancellor, he will have to refrain from saying one or two things.
Anyone who flies with the Air Force every now and then and sits on Macron’s sofa doesn’t immediately become a statesman. There is much more to this. First and foremost: impulse control and self-discipline.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
