BERLIN (AP) – Armin Laschet, the governor of Germany’s most populous state, emerged victorious in a bruised power struggle on Tuesday and became the candidate of Angela Merkel’s center-right bloc to succeed the longtime chancellor in the September elections. of the country.
Laschet, 60, is now facing another big battle: connecting with voters and conquering frustrated conservative colleagues who have backed his more popular rival, Markus Soeder.
Their 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 almost 16 years in power.
The race turned into a heated duel after both Laschet, the leader of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, and Soeder, who leads his party’s younger Bavarian sister, the Christian Social Union, declared their interest in succeeding Merkel.
Soeder acknowledged after the CDU leadership backed Laschet in a late vote, promising 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 face the challenges,” Laschet told reporters in Berlin. “So it is important now that the Union, CDU and CSU enter the election campaign as a team.”
Part of the CDU strongly favored Soeder, while others vehemently opposed his offer to turn Laschet aside for the top job. Soeder has much better voting ratings, but Laschet was elected in January to lead the much larger 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 gathered the CDU leadership behind his offer. But Soeder said the problem should not be solved “only in a small back room.”
After days of talks failed to produce a solution, but revealed divisions in the CDU, Soeder said Monday that the larger party must decide and will abide by a “clear decision.”
At a turbulent meeting of the CDU leadership, 31 of its members voted for Laschet, nine for Soeder and six abstained, the dpa news agency reported. That made Soeder accept.
The Union bloc is campaigning together in the federal elections and has a joint parliamentary group. The CSU exists only in Bavaria, while the CDU operates in the other 15 states of Germany.
The Union conducts polls in front of green environmentalists, who nominated Annalena Baerbock as their first candidate for chancellor on Monday. The center-left Social Democrats nominated Finance Minister Olaf Scholz a few months ago.
Laschet, the son of a miner from Aachen, a town on the German border with Belgium and the Netherlands, was a member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2005.
He was elected governor of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2017, a traditional center-left fortress.
Supporters often point to this victory when asked about his poor poll ratings – along with his success in the race to lead the Merkel party, in which he defeated conservative favorite Friedrich Merz.
They also emphasize its conciliatory nature. Laschet governs his home region in a coalition of pro-business free democrats, but could probably work seamlessly with a left-wing partner. Current polls suggest the Greens may hold the key to forming the next government, even if Baerbock does not win the election.
However, Laschet – whose centrist policy is largely in line with Merkel’s pragmatic approach – did not have a honeymoon as the CDU leader. In recent weeks, he has drawn criticism because he seems to be faltering over how to manage a recurrence of coronavirus cases, while Soeder has cultivated an image as a decisive support for tough action. Last month, the CDU lost two state elections.
National polls show that the Union is giving up the gains it has made through Merkel’s management of the early stages of the pandemic. There has been dissatisfaction with a slow start to Germany’s vaccination campaign and a scandal over alleged profits by some EU parliamentarians from mask purchase agreements last year.
On Tuesday, Laschet said saving lives in the coming weeks and months is the top priority today, but “people expect the politicians they think beyond today.”
“We need to become better, faster and more modern as a country,” he said. “It was necessary anyway, but it is even more necessary after the pandemic – more innovation, more trust, less bureaucracy.”
Laschet, who served as 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 that a Germany under his leadership would have “a firm belief in multilateral solutions”.