Almost two weeks before the federal election, the CSU is resisting the Union’s downward trend in the fight for the Chancellery, which has been going on for weeks at its party congress. At the beginning of the two-day party conference on Friday in Nuremberg, the regular election of CSU leader Markus Söder was on the program. He was the only candidate to receive 600 of the 685 valid delegate votes. This meant that 87.6 percent were behind the party leader. A total of 694 votes were cast, nine votes were invalid.
Söder ended up just above the result of 87.4 percent in his first election at the beginning of 2019, but lagged behind the result of his re-election in October 2019 – at that time it was 91.3 percent. Söder, who accepted the election, had been officially proposed for re-election by the President of the Bavarian State Parliament, Ilse Aigner.
In view of the continuing disastrous polls of the Union, however, the re-election of Söder is only a marginal aspect. The focus is entirely on the appearance of Union Chancellor candidate and CDU leader Armin Laschet on Saturday in Nuremberg – and before that, the speech by Markus Söder. He uses his appearance in front of the approximately 900 delegates to warn against a left slide in the federal election – and to advertise for himself and the CSU. “I’m not in the mood for the opposition,” said Söder in his speech. “The surveys are not sufficient. There is indeed a threat of a political landslide,” he warned with a view to a possible alliance between the SPD, the Greens and the Left Party.
The Left is still the official successor party of the SED. To this day, the party’s politicians have not been able to break with the injustice regime of the GDR. It’s not just about history, but also about the present and the future. “The left formula is: higher taxes, higher debts, more bureaucracy, less security,” said Söder. “We want Armin Laschet as chancellor instead of Olaf Scholz or Annalena Baerbock,” he added and promised unity between the sister parties CSU and CDU in the last two weeks of the election campaign.
Even before the party congress began, the heads of the CSU and CDU tried to create a harmonious impression. “With Armin Laschet and Markus Söder we are sending the signal of maximum unity and determination of the Union from Nuremberg. We are ready to fight and give everything,” said a joint appeal by the general secretaries of the CDU and CSU, Paul Ziemiak and Markus Blume .
The already difficult relationship between the CSU and Laschet had cooled down in the past few weeks due to the increasingly poor polls – it is therefore completely open how the 900 delegates in Nuremberg will greet him on Saturday and react to his speech.