Armin Laschet will run as the conservative candidate to succeed chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany’s elections in September, after the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won the support of senior party figures and his rival Markus Söder dropped out of the race.
Laschet, who has been party leader since January, late on Monday night gained the support of 77.5% of the party board at an internal meeting – 31 votes compared to nine for Söder. “I am ready to run for office on our behalf,” Laschet said after the board voted.
But the internal gathering also revealed a deep divide about Laschet’s candidacy within the CDU board, whose backing of their leader had been unanimous at a more informal show of support a week ago.
Söder, the state premier of Bavaria and leader of CDU sister party CSU, conceded defeat at a press conference on Tuesday, saying he had already congratulated his competitor on the appointment.
“The die has been cast,” said Söder, whose aggressive bid for the chancellor candidacy had paralysed the conservative party bloc for the last week. “Armin Laschet will be the CDU/CSU’s candidate for chancellor.”
Nonetheless, a political divide had emerged. Peter Altmaier, the economy minister and close Merkel ally, switched his support to Söder after saying he perceived a lack of enthusiasm about Laschet in all federal states bar the party leader’s home turf, in North-Rhine Westphalia.
Christian Democrats from the formerly socialist eastern regions also expressed a preference for the Bavarian. On Tuesday, the general secretary of the CSU called Söder the Kandidat der Herzen, “the candidate of hearts” – a reference to the time a popular Schalke 04 team lost the Bundesliga title to Bayern Munich in the dying minutes of the 2000/2001 season.
In a conservative party bloc that traditionally agrees on its candidate for the chancellory behind the scenes, there was no formalised procedure for what would happen next. On Monday night, even Laschet seemed to briefly consider putting his candidacy to the vote among Germany’s 300-odd regional party bosses.
With Merkel stepping down after the election, the conservatives have been under pressure to present a formidable candidate capable of re-establishing its dominant standing in the polls, pushed down to a one-year low by the chaotic handling of the most recent wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Green party, lying in wait in second place, upped the ante on Monday when it presented its first ever candidate for the chancellory, 40-year-old co-leader Annalena Baerbock, showcasing levels of unity and professionalism previously associated with Merkel’s Christian Democrats.
By rooting for Laschet, 60, the CDU elite prioritised its ascendancy in the conservative bloc over the prospect of being led to victory by Söder, 54, who is seen as an ideologically erratic political animal and less of a team-player than the jovial Rhinelander.
Germany’s conservatives risk entering the hot phase of the election race led by a politician who is seen as down-to-earth but lacking an ability to inspire even his own party peers.
In North-Rhine Westphalia, the populous western state where Laschet has been premier since 2017, only 26% of those surveyed in a poll this month said they were satisfied with his achievements in government.
The conservatives retain a narrow lead in nationwide polls over the Greens, but a Laschet-led CDU will face a formidable challenge to extend its 16-year-old hold on power without Merkel, who has won them four consecutive victories.
Laschet’s loyal support of Merkel’s open-borders stance at the peak of the 2015 refugee crisis earned him the image of her continuity candidate. But during the pandemic, the former MEP managed to cede that role to Söder, who sided more firmly with the chancellor on lockdown restrictions.
Merkel, who has been in power since 2005, did not weigh in on the conservative candidacy debate, saying last week: “I wanted to, want to and will stay out of it.”
Participants at Monday’s marathon talks told German media that Merkel sat in on the video conference but did not contribute to the discussions, with some observers reading into her silence a lack of support for Laschet.
Confirming his candidacy at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Laschet cited the EU founding father Jean Monnet and expressing his “firm belief in multilateral solutions”. The mood music chimed with the message of European stability that Green candidate Baerbock had conveyed in her campaign launch with the day before.
On the environment, the Green challenger and the miner’s son from Germany’s former rust belt make a less likely match. “Here’s to a fair election battle over the leadership of this country”, Baerbock congratulated Laschet on Twitter on Tuesday. “And over who can energetically bring about the necessary changes so we can master the challenges.”
A Forsa poll last week put support for the conservative alliance at 27%, ahead of the Greens at 23%.