Friedrich Merz really cannot be blamed for a lack of perseverance. He has already run twice for the CDU chairmanship, now he wants to know a third time. Almost twenty years after Angela Merkel ousted him from the chairmanship of the Union parliamentary group – and thus from the front row of politics – Merz still wants to return to this ranks with all his might.
No one can say with certainty how the member survey on the chairmanship will turn out. The CDU member is a surprisingly unknown being. District chairmen report that about a third of the members are active, the preferences of the others are not known. And the opinion polls on the party leadership relate to all Union supporters and not just to the CDU members. They also come to different conclusions.
But would Merz be the right CDU boss at all? His supporters believe that after all these Merkel years he can put the party back on track. In addition, he has the size to include his competitors. It is not about himself, but about the party.
At least the latter will still have to be proven by Merz. After his defeat by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, he had not applied for any other office in the CDU. At the party congress he acted according to the motto: chair or nothing. Carsten Linnemann, the head of the economic wing, had almost begged him from the lectern: “Dear Friedrich, please stay with us.”
After his defeat by Armin Laschet, Merz wanted to be appointed Federal Minister of Economics immediately. As if he had won. A state office was good enough for him, he did not want to take over a party office again.
And so it will now not only be about Merz’s political course, but also about the question of whether the majority of the CDU members believe that it is actually about the party for him.