Munich, January 4th. On Wednesday, the CSU presented the CDU with a concept for the “partnership-based and consensus-oriented determination” of a joint candidate for chancellor for the 2025 federal election. “The brothers now have until midnight to agree to our proposal. Otherwise it will be uncomfortable,” said Alexander Dobrindt, head of the CSU state group in the Bundestag, before the winter retreat in Seeon Monastery. Contrary to what many expected, the concept does not provide for a new body of the two Union parties to clarify the K question. “We want to solve the matter in a fair way,” said Dobrindt. That is why the chancellor candidate will be determined “in a tennis tournament of all applicants” in Munich’s Iphitos tennis club on the northern edge of the English Garden. The game will be played on three winning sets, with a possible fifth set without a tie-break.
The CSU chairman Markus Söder said on Twitter: “Legitimacy arises when you make politics in harmony with the majority of people. Tennis is a popular sport and part of our DNA. #centercourt-instead-backroom”. In another tweet, Söder writes: “I like to play myself and have been playing regularly since 1980. My backhand slice often helps me out of trouble. I’m curious to see what Friedrich, Hendrik and Daniel can do.” A spokesman for the federal CDU said on Wednesday that they had “no knowledge of a tennis tournament in Munich”. The fact that party leader Friedrich Merz promised to take part in a refresher course at the Sauerland tennis club Arnsberg 1907 at short notice for the Epiphany weekend is “in no way related to the most recent announcements by the CSU state group”.
From CSU circles it was said that Merz could get a 15-0 lead over Söder in every service game due to his “advanced age”. “The faction community of the CSU and CDU proves itself in good cooperation,” said Dobrindt. However, he indirectly criticized the fact that doubts about the CSU concept were being circulated from those around the CDU Prime Ministers Hendrik Wüst and Daniel Günther: “What’s wrong with tennis? People would not accept anyone as a candidate for chancellor just because they were district champions in mudflat hiking or currywurst throwing is.” Dobrindt also announced that RTL already had the television rights to all games in the Bavarian Chancellor Open have acquired. The broadcaster’s tennis experts, Thomas Gottschalk and Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, are to comment.