Ralph Brinkhaus wasn’t actually a bad faction leader. There aren’t many members of the Bundestag who can give speeches as accident-free as he can without a cheat sheet. Nevertheless, it is correct that Brinkhaus is now vacating the presidency of the Union faction for Friedrich Merz. In the current Merz euphoria that is spreading in the CDU, he simply had no other choice. And it speaks for Brinkhaus again that he saw it just in time.
In view of what is happening to Friedrich Merz, it would almost be an understatement to speak of a run. It’s more of a walkthrough. Within a few weeks, Merz has received everything that seemed to have been denied to him throughout his life. Almost exactly a year after he failed again in a runoff election for the party chairmanship and after he had emphatically dealt with the question of whether he would finally leave politics, the CDU finally elected him party leader with a result that was almost North Korean . And 20 years after Angela Merkel had ousted him from the parliamentary group chairmanship, he now took it back again – in a power struggle that, exceptionally, took place behind the scenes.
Two reasons explain his rapid resurgence
Merz has not been known for exaggerated modesty. But he probably didn’t even expect that the Union would submit to him so completely on his comeback, which was also expressed in the tears he shed publicly when the results of his election were announced. But there are two main reasons that explain how the outsider Merz was able to rise to become Frederick the Great in such a short time: his personal learning curve and the state of the CDU.
Merz hasn’t been as conservative for a long time as some of his ultra fans would like and as many of his opponents would like him to be. But it has recently offered significantly less attack surface. No longer succumbing to the temptation to underestimate its internal competition, it appears to have successfully engaged its skeptics, who are concentrated primarily in the social wing. In the transition phase as designated party leader, he found the right balance between the necessary restraint and the necessary presence. Even before his term of office officially begins on Monday, he has completely renewed the party leadership and did not miss the opportunity to set an example on the right-wing edge with the exclusion proceedings against the AfD accomplice Max Otte. It seems as if everything at Merz followed a strategy, something that was rarely said about its predecessor. Recently at the party conference, even CSU leader Markus Söder apologized for the taunts that Armin Laschet in particular had to endure.
The Union is traumatized by the duel between Laschet and Söder
The War of the Roses over the chancellor candidacy between Laschet and Söder not only pushed the Union into opposition, but also left it lastingly traumatized. The new strength of Merz is also based on this. More than ever, the party longs for harmony and clarity in personnel matters.
In the end, Ralph Brinkhaus had no arguments against that either. He has now sacrificed his beloved job to spare the Union the next ordeal. Some of the expressions of respect that he received from the parliamentary group sounded like an entry in a poetry book (“You always held our parliamentary group together in stormy seas”). It was just a matter of wishing him good luck and blessings in all his ways.
And what if the state elections don’t go well?
The power man Brinkhaus would certainly have expected more than a general pat on the back, but as things stand, he will soon only be a simple member of parliament. It is gradually getting tight in the back rows of the Union faction with all the celebrities. The soon-to-be former faction leader Brinkhaus then meets the former party leaders Laschet and Schäuble and the former Secretary General Ziemiak. At the front, Friedrich Merz enjoys all the more legroom.
He now has practically everything he wanted. But for the first time in his career, Merz has no more excuses. There is no one left whom he could blame if things don’t go well, for example in the upcoming state elections. The establishment of his party, which Merz has so often complained about, is now himself. History, and not just that of the Union, teaches that supposed saviors who don’t deliver fall the hardest.