Friedrich Merz: The CDU candidate for chancellor us his way up – a portrait

Friedrich Merz has been involved in top politics for decades. But the way to the top was denied in all the time. In the early Bundestag election in February, Merz could fulfill his dream – and Federal Chancellor. For the CDU chairman, it would be a late happy ending of his political career.

Even before the end of the traffic light coalition, Merz was determined as a candidate for Chancellor at the Union-for the Bundestag election, which was supposed to take place in autumn. “People want to be re -ruled again. We are ready. We are prepared,” said Merz after his nomination by the party executive. He had finally reached the top – not yet in the whole country, but at least in his party, which had screwed the tour a few times.

Because Friedrich Merz’s path in the CDU was peppered with setbacks. Legendary is his rivalry to Angela Merkel, which resulted from a long power struggle for the chair of the Union faction in the Bundestag in the early 2000s. Merkel prevailed, Merz pulled the shorter one, everything else is history.

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After retiring from parliament and a longer political abstinence, the native Sauerlander in 2018 reports back out of the blue. He ran for the party chair twice – both times the majority of the delegates let him play. In the first attempt, Merz lost Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, in the second Armin Laschet. Again his CDU, in which he had entered at 17, had not believed that the very large format had not been believed.

Some write it to his pronounced ego, others of his fighting nature, that Friedrich Merz tried to become CDU boss a third time-this time it worked. Merz has been running the Christian Democrats since the beginning of 2022. When CSU chairman Markus Söder finally waived the candidacy for chancellor, the (preliminary) highlight was reached in Friedrich Merz’s political career. The path should now lead him to the Chancellery. In contrast to his opponents Olaf Scholz and Robert Habeck, Merz has not yet had government experience.

During his tenure, he is now trying to sharpen the party’s conservative profile again. Conversely, this means the departure from some topics of the Merkel CDU. Merz (Catholic, three children and married to his wife Charlotte for more than 40 years) speaks out for a harder migration policy. After the knife attack in Aschaffenburg, he announced that on the first day of his chancellorship, all German borders permanently checked and reject all attempts from the illegal entry. Merz rejects cannabis legalization as well as the citizens’ money and wants less welfare state. Especially in the economically difficult situation, the citizens should be demanded more.

Economically competent, but little close to the people – Friedrich Merz has been liable for many years. During his political abstinence, the Christian Democrat sat on numerous supervisory boards. Merz was chairman of the supervisory board for the German subsidiary of the investment giant Blackrock for four years. However, what is often forgotten: Merz and his wife have been campaigning for charitable projects in their home region for many years.

In contrast to the former Chancellor and party leader Merkel, the current CDU chairman is known to react impulsively in some situations and step into fat. In a talk show, he called children with a migration background “Little Pashas”, Ukrainian refugees, he assumed “social tourism” – a term for which he later apologized. On another occasion, he claimed that migrants would take the doctor’s appointments away. His statement, as a millionaire, was also “part of the upscale middle class”, met with little understanding.

Nevertheless, the chances for Merz are not bad to recapture the Chancellery for the Union. His party is clearly ahead in the surveys.

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