Friedrich Merz, who had tried without success to access this position twice, “said” deeply moved “by this plebiscite.
Le Monde with AFP.
The German Conservatives elected, on Saturday, January 22, to a large majority Friedrich Merz, former rival of Angela Merkel, as new president, with the task of straightening a rolled party since his defeat to the legislative elections.
The 980 delegates of the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU), gathered in videoconferencing congress because of the pandemic, voted nearly 95% in favor of the 66 year old – only candidate and already designated in December as a favorite by party members. Friedrich Merz, who had tried without success to access this position twice in recent years, “said” deeply moved “by this plebiscite.
Holding a return to a traditional conservative line, after the years of Angela Merkel’s centrism, he will have to revive training in deep crisis since his failure to resound in the legislative elections of September 26, where she suffered the most weak score of its history. This poor performance had pushed the outgoing leader and unfortunate candidate to the Chancellery, Armin Leschet, to give his mandate into play.
Saturday, Mr. Merz called the party to tighten ranks. “We must be a strong opposition. We want to win the elections in the Länder,” he launched, with reference to several regional polls planned for this year in the country.
Will to break with Merkel years
After sixteen years of directing Germany, the CDU started an opposition cure for the next four years, facing the government formed by the Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz with ecologists and the Liberal Party. The new leader of the Conservatives caught Mr. Scholz, which he accused inaction as well in the debate on compulsory vaccination against CVIV-19 that in the subject of the crisis in Ukraine.
Without having attacked frontally the ex-Chancellor, Friedrich Merz does not make mystery of his will to break with the Merkel years. Their rivalry goes back in the early 2000s when Angela Merkel, then President of the CDU, had rejected him from the strategic position of the Parliamentary Group’s Presidency.