CDU leader Merz does not want to allow another power struggle over the candidacy for chancellor. He wants to make his own decision dependent on several factors – including his age.
According to his own statements, CDU chairman Friedrich Merz does not assume that CSU leader Markus Söder will face another internal Union power struggle over the Union’s candidacy for chancellor in the next federal election. “Markus Söder and I simply understand each other too well personally,” he told the dpa news agency. “And he also knows that we will not and do not want to repeat it like it did in 2021.”
In 2021, Söder only handed over the Union’s candidacy for chancellor to the then CDU leader Armin Laschet after a power struggle. “I won’t allow something like that to happen again,” said Merz.
The timing of the decision is still open
When asked whether he was the “natural candidate for chancellor” in an early Bundestag election, Merz answered cautiously. “We talk about this in the Union between the CDU and CSU. First the party chairmen, then of course also the state chairmen. When the time comes. And we will stick to that.”
The Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer recently said that the debate about the Union’s candidacy for chancellor had been resolved in favor of Merz. North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst, however, avoided a commitment to Merz.
With a view to Söder’s proposal to decide on the candidate for chancellor only after the state elections in September 2024, Merz said: “This is a question of the political assessment of the situation and we will do it together.” The following applies: “The two party chairmen are, in principle, always potential candidates.”
Merz with “great respect” for his candidacy
Merz said that of course he also talked to his family about the topic. As before, he will not make any decision “that does not meet with the approval of my family.” The office is the most politically important in Germany and demands a high level of international presence and respect.
“I also have to take a number of factors into account, which I will carefully reflect on and decide for myself. This is not a given,” said Merz. When asked whether there was anything against him becoming a candidate for chancellor, he replied: “The question of which groups of voters I reach as a person is an issue.”
Age plays a role for Merz
In addition, he will be 70 years old a few weeks after the next regular federal election in the fall of the year after next: “After Konrad Adenauer, I would be the oldest applicant for the office of Chancellor in the Federal Republic of Germany.”
When it was pointed out that the likely presidential candidates in the USA in the 2024 elections there would be significantly older, Merz spoke of a “warning note not to simply take it for granted that one can really still fill such an office at this age.” . US President Joe Biden is 81 years old, his possible challenger and predecessor Donald Trump is 77 years old.
Georg Schwarte, ARD Berlin, tagesschau, December 29, 2023 1:30 p.m