The designated CDU chief announces that he will build a “firewall” to the right-wing party. At the same time, he approaches ex-Chancellor Merkel: He wants a good relationship with her. “We completely underestimated Merkel.”
The designated CDU chairman Friedrich Merz wants to prevent his party from cooperating with the AfD. “With me there will be a firewall to the AfD”, Merz said mirror. “The regional associations, especially in the east, get a crystal clear message from us: If anyone of us raises their hand to work with the AfD, then the next day there will be a party exclusion process.”
Merz announced that he would be very consistent in relation to the AfD from the start. “We are not the XYZ party that can go with everyone. We are the CDU.” Franz Josef Strauss once said that a jacket that was buttoned up incorrectly could no longer be corrected at the top. “He was right about that.”
The 66-year-old ex-Union parliamentary group leader was recently chosen by a large majority as the new party leader to succeed Armin Laschet in a CDU membership vote. He should at the federal party conference on 21./22. January to be appointed party chairman. Merz warned his party that getting back to the chancellery would not be easy. “Many of us have not yet understood what it means to be in the opposition.”
At the same time, he took on more friendly tones towards Angela Merkel, with whom he had had a bad relationship for two decades, and indicated that he wanted to involve the former Chancellor during his term in office. “I would be happy if Angela Merkel and the CDU stick together in the future, it won’t fail because of me,” said Merz. “I would like to have a good relationship with all four of my living predecessors. Treating each other properly is part of the DNA of our party. Recently, the internal climate in our country was difficult. I want to improve it.”
Merz was pushed out of the office of parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag in 2002 by the then CDU chairwoman Merkel. At the time, he had to be satisfied with a deputy post, and in 2009 he retired from politics. Now he admits that he did not appreciate her performance in the party enough. “We completely underestimated Merkel,” said Merz, referring to the time before Merkel’s rise. “Take a look at our leadership a good 20 years ago: Kohl, Schäuble, Rühe, Koch, Wulff, Müller. Women played practically no role in leadership back then.” Merkel was “a women’s political pacemaker” for the CDU.