As of: 10/08/2021 10:56 a.m.
After the historic election failure of the Union, CDU boss Laschet was the most recently criticized – calls for a resignation became louder. Now some recall the behavior of CSU boss Söder.
It has been almost two weeks since the Union suffered a historic defeat in the federal elections – since then the headlines have almost exclusively been about CDU leader Armin Laschet. Now some of his supporters are moving the chairman of the sister party CSU, Markus Söder, back to the fore.
The security expert Peter Neumann, who is part of Laschet’s future team, blames Söder for the poor results in the federal election. “One of the sore points in the Union was always that the party did not fully support Armin Laschet and Markus Söder undermined him every other day,” Neumann told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”.
Bosbach: “Not closed”
The former CDU politician Wolfgang Bosbach also blamed the lack of team spirit on the part of the CDU and CSU as one of the reasons for the election defeat. “As a team, we weren’t so close and convincing that we as a team could have prevented this bitter defeat,” said Bosbach in the ZDF morning magazine.
With regard to Laschet’s announcement that he would reorganize the party, Bosbach said that the successor would require someone who had “sufficient political experience”. In the case of a traffic light coalition, the position of the opposition leader – i.e. the Union parliamentary group leader – plays a special role. The question will be whether the chairmanship of the party and the parliamentary group will be placed in one hand or whether the offices will be held separately.
Reactions to Laschet’s speech varied
Yesterday’s speech by the CDU chairman is rated differently in the party: while some shake their heads in disbelief because Laschet apparently expressly avoided the word resignation, others see his words as an offer for such an offer and show him respect.
Economics minister Peter Altmaier said in the ZDF program “Markus Lanz” that Laschet did not finally specify what the reorganization meant for himself. “But nevertheless everyone understood that he does not want to stand in the way of the necessary changes if there is a majority in the party for them.” That deserves “respect and recognition”.
Laschet wants to propose a party congress to the top CDU bodies on Monday to reorganize staff – he announced this on Thursday evening. He wants to moderate this process. It is about “a consensus of all who are currently being considered,” he said – without naming possible candidates as party leader such as Health Minister Jens Spahn, foreign expert Norbert Röttgen, economic expert Friedrich Merz or parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus.