For him it has always been important that “the CDU is visible as a team,” said Armin Laschet on Friday. But that was exactly what his party had begun to doubt in the past few months. What did Laschet not explain in the race for CDU chairmanship and candidacy for chancellor. That the party doesn’t need a chairman, but a team captain who brings people together. That he therefore does not appear as a “one-man show”, but as a team player. But then it was Armin Laschet, of all people, who drove through the country as a one-man show.
Anyone who wants to go to the Chancellery cannot avoid decisions
The CDU boss wants to become chancellor. But he was too cowardly to make decisions. It is right that anyone who sets up a team alienates all those who do not come into the team. But those who want to go to the Chancellery cannot avoid such decisions. Laschet did without a team even when his personal polls plummeted and he became ballast for the party. He also harmed the CDU.
In dire need, Laschet has now changed course – and presented a “future team”. But the team is way too late. It was put together hectically and in a small group. It is a desperate team that should be the past instead of the future on September 26th. And it reveals many problems that the CDU has in addition to the lack of traction of its candidate for chancellor.
Laschet said at the presentation that he has now formed a team of personalities “who have developed original new ideas for the future” and who stand for what the Union wants to implement. There seems to be no one among the federal ministers of the Union who fulfills this requirement – at least none of them is on the team.
But not all of those who made it into the selection are convincing either. That Friedrich Merz should stand for the future of the CDU will at best see the party’s regular voters that way. He rather scares off the many Merkel voters that the CDU is currently in danger of losing. Nobody believes that Silvia Breher could turn things around for the Union. The woman has been deputy head of the CDU for almost two years – and is still unknown to the wider public.
Either Armin Laschet has no plan, or he has a different one every day
Laschet said on Friday: “We are not digitally set up the way we should be.” He is right. But why he believes that this is why Dorothee Bär has to be part of his team remains his secret. The CSU politicians was only State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Transport and in the past eight years digital infrastructure, then the Minister of State responsible for digitization with the Federal Chancellor. So she is either partly responsible for the misery or not assertive. On Friday she announced that she would “give the state an update” and “ignite a new digital turbo”. Why should this work all of a sudden?
For months Laschet didn’t want to set up a team at all. Now, after the three-person climate team presented on Monday, there is surprisingly also a future team. That reinforces an impression that has solidified more and more in the past few weeks: Either Armin Laschet has no plan, or he has a different one every day.