Blundering and fearful, the CDU was heading for a historic defeat

Many local branches of the CDU did not even want to put up Armin Laschet’s election posters. Laschet was unpopular as a leader, not among his own party members, even less among voters, and now, with the worst result in the history of the CDU, he is pretty much the least popular man in Germany. Even the polling agencies are trying to dispel their post-election hangover with polls like: Should Laschet resign (yes, 63 percent), or: Should Laschet become Chancellor (13 percent in favour).

The CDU, the governing party of Adenauer, Kohl and Merkel that has ruled almost continuously since 1949, is reeling under Sunday’s defeat. The CDU/CSU received 24.1 percent of the vote. It is no longer the stable middle party in the German Bundestag that, alternating with three SPD chancellors, could always lay claim to power.

On election night itself, only Angela Merkel seems to see that. Merkel bounces from one leg to the other, unusually restless, above her mouth cap, her gaze darts from left to right. Laschet, on the other hand, says among a group of CDU prominent figures on stage that, despite the historically poor result, he will “do everything in his power” to form a government.

And that while the SPD wins the elections, that other middle party, for which the decline already started after 2005. The current 25.7 percent is a boost for the Social Democrats compared to the results in recent years.

On Monday, Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer called the result a “landslide”. Laschet’s confidant Herbert Reul from North Rhine-Westphalia speaks of a “catastrophe”. Everyone is pointing at Laschet, everywhere there is a call for ‘personal consequences’. Behind the current CDU chairman is a row of men ready to take over the leadership from him.

How could the CDU go from a well-oiled power machine to a divided, archaic and fearful party?

April

On Sunday evening, April 18, the entire German press is looking at an app that can track aircraft in the airspace. Markus Söder, Prime Minister of Bavaria and chairman of the CDU sister party CSU, is on his way by jet from his hometown of Nuremberg to Berlin to, it seems, be crowned candidate for chancellor. A week earlier, Söder announced that, alongside Laschet, he is willing to take on the candidate for chancellorship. And Söder is popular with his strong-men leadership style and penchant for strict corona measures, much more popular than Laschet.

Also read: Our analysis of the election results

In the days after Söder’s announcement, more and more CDU members sided with the Bavarian candidate. One after the other CDU Prime Minister expresses his preference for Söder; in the CDU/CSU faction meeting there seems to be a majority for the CSU man. With so much backing, Söder’s candidacy can no longer fail.

But in Berlin a meeting awaits him with Armin Laschet and a number of CDU prominent figures, including Wolfgang Schäuble. Schäuble – at the age of 79 still one of the most influential figures among the Christian Democrats – and the other veterans also do not want a CSU candidate. That would be a letdown for the party. That evening they tell Söder that he will never become chancellor. Söder must realize: without support from Berlin he has no chance. A day later, he congratulates Laschet on being the leader of the party.

For Laschet, it means an election campaign in which he is the one who is not wanted by a majority from the start. His candidacy was saved by the party establishment, local branches are skeptical. Söder, says his right-hand man, had been the ‘candidate of hearts’, and Söder himself continues to rival Laschet.

But the leadership crisis within the CDU has been going on for some time. In 2018, Merkel announced her retirement and relinquished the CDU presidency. First, current Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was elected Merkel’s successor, but ‘AKK’ had to leave the field in 2020, Merkel withdrew her support. A successor to AKK was only chosen in January of this year: Laschet won with a narrow majority of Friedrich Merz and Norbert Röttgen. Since Merkel’s resignation as CDU chairman, the party has been without an authoritative leader for three years. There has been no thought for years about where the party should go. Friedrich Merz called his party “lazy in thinking” this Friday. The election themes were determined ad hoc this summer.

Augustus

Laschet is campaigning in full in August. The CDU is only a few percentage points ahead of the Social Democrats in the polls. Laschet’s schedule is full, so full that he is late for many appointments.

In Osnabrück he walks through a shopping street, a journalist from Focus asks him what the three most important themes are for him. Digitization, says Laschet, and making industry climate neutral. And the third theme, the journalist asks – but nothing more comes to mind for that.

The situation on that street in Osnabrück is chaotic. Laschet is surrounded by journalists and everyone wants to know about him, but the silence on the question about the third theme is symbolic and fatal. The CDU’s election themes remain a mystery to this day. In April, the CDU pretended to be as green as the Greens, who then seemed to be the main competitor; at the end of the summer, more and more emphasis was placed on the free market economy, in opposition to the SPD.

Under Angela Merkel, the CDU also did not have a clear program. But Merkel had a good sense of the zeitgeist and simply adopted themes from the SPD, such as same-sex marriage or the minimum wage. The confidence that Merkel was able to arouse by the way she handled various crises was enough for the voter.

The CDU has the ambition to be a ‘people’s party’, a party in which all layers of the population feel represented. Conflicting interests must be resolved within the party. But, recently said HE DOEScommentator Jasper von Altenbockum in a podcast, that compromise must be propagated by a credible figure. Merkel was able to do this thanks to her biography alone: ​​a woman from the east, a science person moreover, who makes it among the men from the old Federal Republic. Laschet kept saying that he wanted to ‘connect’, but he could not convince.

One of the highlights of Laschet’s campaign should have been the companionable photos of him and Elon Musk. Things went differently. In August, Elon Musk gives Laschet a tour of the Tesla factory under construction in Brandenburg. There will be a short press conference afterwards. One of the journalists present asks Musk whether the future of the car industry is the electric motor or hydrogen. Perhaps not the smartest question for an electric car giant. Servingly, Laschet translates the German journalist’s question into English. Musk says, “Hydrogen is a waste of time,” and starts cackling a laugh. An excerpt of the event spreads rapidly on the internet: Laschet asks a question and is then laughed at by Musk. Laschet is once again the laughing stock of Germany.

September

Tuesday afternoon last week, the CDU/CSU faction meets. The parliamentary press in Berlin doubts Laschet will make it through the evening: a new group leader must be elected, the only post with influence in the opposition, but Laschet cannot stand for election because he would lose. There is a line of candidates ready to take over the position. In the end, Laschet manages to force a compromise: the current party chairman Ralph Brinkhaus will remain in office for another six months, after which he will be re-elected.

It is a miracle that Laschet made it to the end of the week. Laschet’s rescue is the power of the liberal FDP (12 percent), which, together with the Greens (15 percent), is taking the initiative to form a new coalition. The small parties, which are far apart in terms of finances and social policy, first want to come up with an outline proposal among themselves, and then take it to the SPD and the CDU. The FDP is much closer to the CDU than to the Social Democrats in finance and tax policy, the FDP even jokes that the CDU has partly copied the party program, so the Liberals prefer the CDU as a coalition partner. FDP party leader Lindner also knows Laschet well. And the conservatives among the Greens, such as Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann of Baden-Württemberg, also speak out for the CDU.

Can Laschet still become chancellor? His position is being challenged from all sides. Party leader Ralph Brinkhaus, Health Minister Jens Spahn, the aforementioned Friedrich Merz and the other loser to the CDU presidency, Norbert Röttgen, are all out for the CDU presidency. All five men come from North Rhine-Westphalia. The proportion of women within the CDU is still small, not to mention the number of people with a migrant background.

The power play at the CDU and the weak position of Laschet is not exactly a good starting point for the first exploratory coalition talks. The Greens have already called the party “unable to govern or form” in this state. This is also apparent from the delegation that the CDU sends to the first meeting with the FDP this Sunday evening: ten men from the CDU, plus five from the CSU. Anyone looking for influence wants to be there, including Markus Söder of the CSU, of course. Because if those talks with FDP and Greens still succeed, the opportunity may arise again to push aside the excited candidate-chancellor Laschet.

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