Status: 10/15/2021 5:48 p.m.
It was supposed to be a broken court – but now it’s a show of the candidates for the party chairmanship. For the CDU, the JU’s Germany Day is about the future of the party.
Tilman Kuban certainly imagined this Germany Day to be different. The Junge Union was prepared for a broken dish, rather not for a show. Armin Laschet’s announced withdrawal fell right in the middle of the planning of the CDU and CSU youth organization for Germany Day. Since then, the daily schedule has been constantly updated, also because suddenly all aspirants wanted to talk to the party chairmanship. It became the party congress of greetings.
The carousel of the contenders turns lively. Who should speak when, before or after whom, in front of the daily News or after? Tilman Kuban juggled the times from Friday to Sunday until everyone was happy, except for Markus Söder. He had canceled.
Praise back
Appointments at his own base are more important to him. They are unlikely to be enthusiastic about this at JU. After all, in April, in the party’s internal power struggle for the candidacy for chancellor, the majority backed Söder.
At the weekend Söder praised back for it, paid Tilman Kuban a compliment on the open stage at the JU day in Bavaria. “Tilman, I’m going to speak to you on behalf of the entire CDU,” he said: “For me today you are practically the CDU chairman.”
Even the relationship of the party sisters
Originally, Söder also wanted to come to the Germany Day – but then apparently rather not to the fragmentation court, to analyze the election debacle. Söder would have had to take it too, because of his constant swipes at Laschet. Kuban regretted Söder’s rejection in the “Rheinische Post”, also against the background that Söder would have been supported in April. “So it would have been right if he had faced the discussion at the joint youth organization of the CDU and CSU about the reasons for the poor outcome in the Bundestag election and the differences in dealings between the two parties.”
But the JU boss also said. The relationship between the party sisters must be smoothed out again. A union council is supposed to help mediate between the CDU and the CSU. But before the reconciliation comes first the gleanings and the reorganization. The CDU just doesn’t need the CSU. Big sister has to deal with that for herself. A team is desired. But it is rather unlikely.
A power struggle on the open stage is far more likely. That shouldn’t be alien to the JU boss and maybe even exactly to his taste. So Kuban finally took office two years ago – with a furious speech at the Germany Day in Berlin.
In 2019, Kuban prevailed against the party leadership’s favorite. At that time against the preferred candidate of the newly elected CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. So much has happened since then that by CDU standards it feels like two decades of history. The party tore apart two party leaders in less than two years. That has never happened before in the CDU. And now those are back on the tableau who have already tried.
The candidate carousel turns
Friedrich Merz, Norbert Röttgen, Jens Spahn and – new to the possible candidate carousel – Union parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus and the head of the SME Association, Carsten Linnemann. Five men from North Rhine-Westphalia. The house power of the CDU dominates the personnel debates again and strains the nerves of the other state associations. Too much NRW, too few women, too little East, no real new faces can be heard from the grassroots.
The party youth is unlikely to like this either. Wiebke Winter from the federal board of the CDU and the Junge Union, for example, last said in an interview with the ARD: “I wish that, especially when we talk about the reorganization of the CDU, that we become younger, more feminine. That we address even more young people than the CDU.”
The youth of the party want to shake each other now, like vigorously and then look ahead as quickly as possible. More culture of debate, more clear content and, in the case of the future party chairman, no decision against the grassroots. Kuban wants a member survey. The party youth of the CDU and CSU would like it to be the same. According to the motto: “May the better win.” And with the clear message. “May the party leadership then also accept the result of the survey.”