BERLIN (AP) – Armin Laschet, the governor of Germany’s most populous state, emerged victorious Tuesday in a fierce power struggle and became Angela Merkel’s center-right bloc candidate to succeed the longtime chancellor in the country’s September elections.
Laschet, 60, now faces another big battle: connecting with voters and winning frustrated fellow Conservatives who supported his most popular rival, Markus Soeder.
His Union bloc was the last major political force to nominate a candidate for chancellor in the September 26 parliamentary elections. Merkel is not looking for a fifth term after nearly 16 years in power.
The race turned into an intense duel after both Laschet, the leader of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, and Soeder, who leads his Bavarian younger sister party, the Christian Social Union, declared their interest in succeeding Merkel. .
Soeder later agreed that the CDU leadership would support Laschet in a nightly vote, and promised that “we will support him without resentment, with all our might.”
“What matters, from now on, is which party has the best concepts for the future of our country and who forms the best team to meet the challenges,” Laschet told the Berlin press. “Therefore, it is important that the Union, the CDU and the CSU enter into a team election campaign.”
Parts of the CDU strongly favored Soeder, while others vehemently opposed his candidacy to leave Laschet aside to get the best place. Soeder has much better poll ratings, but Laschet was chosen in January to lead the much bigger party. It was primarily a conflict of personality and style rather than politics.
Laschet governs the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia and Soeder the southern state of Bavaria.
Earlier last week, Laschet informally rallied the CDU leadership behind his candidacy. But Soeder said the matter should not be resolved “only in a small back room.”
After days of talks he failed to reach a solution, but left the divisions in the CDU in plain sight, Soeder said Monday that the larger party should decide and respect a “clear decision”.
At a turbulent CDU leadership meeting, 31 of its members voted for Laschet, nine for Soeder and six abstained, the dpa news agency reported. This caused Soeder to concede.
The Union bloc is campaigning together in the federal elections and has a joint parliamentary group. The CSU only exists in Bavaria, while the CDU operates in the other 15 German states.
The Union leads polls ahead of Green environmentalists, who on Monday named Annalena Baerbock as their first candidate for chancellor. Center-left Social Democrat fighters nominated Finance Minister Olaf Scholz as a candidate months ago.
Laschet, the son of a miner from Aachen, a city on the German border with Belgium and the Netherlands, was a member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2005.
He was elected in 2017 as governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, a traditional center-left stronghold.
Supporters frequently point to this victory when asked about their poor poll ratings, along with their success in the race to lead Merkel’s party, in which she defeated conservative favorite Friedrich Merz.
They also highlight its conciliatory nature. Laschet governs his home region in a coalition with pro-business free Democrats, but he could probably work smoothly with one more left-wing partner. Current polls suggest the Greens could hold the key to forming the next government, even if Baerbock doesn’t win the election.
Still, Laschet, whose centrist policies are largely in line with Merkel’s pragmatic approach, has had no honeymoon. as the leader of the CDU. In recent weeks, he has drawn criticism for appearing outraged about how to manage a resurgence in coronavirus cases, while Soeder has cultivated an image as a decisive sponsor of tough action. Last month, the CDU lost two state elections.
National surveys have shown that the Union is renouncing the gains made by Merkel’s management of the early stages of the pandemic. There has been discontent with a slow start to Germany’s vaccination campaign and a scandal over the alleged use by some EU lawmakers of mask hiring agreements last year.
On Tuesday, Laschet said saving lives over the next few weeks and months is the current top priority, but “people expect politicians to think beyond today.”
“We need to be better, faster and more modern as a country,” he said. “That was necessary anyway, but it’s even more necessary after the pandemic: more innovation, more trust, less bureaucracy.”
Laschet, who was his state’s minister for immigrant integration in the late 2000s, also stressed that “we must see diversity as an opportunity and not as a threat.”
Laschet emphasized his pro-European Union credentials and said a Germany under his leadership would have “a firm belief in multilateral solutions.”