parties
CDU election party conference: More than 2000 applications and open K question
Friedrich Merz would like to be confirmed in office for the first time by the 1001 delegates. photo
© Hannes P Albert/dpa
Important decisions are expected from the meeting of the CDU delegates at the beginning of May. Party leader Merz is running for re-election for the first time. His performance should be interpreted as a signal.
The CDU committees will meet on May 5th for final preparations for the party conference. On the first day of the delegates’ meeting, the entire CDU leadership is to be re-elected. The adoption of the new basic program is planned for May 7th. The third and final day will be all about the European elections on June 9th. There will be a speech by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is also the top candidate of the conservative European party family EPP. EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola is also expected on this day.
Three applications are over the 500 threshold
Equality, migration and climate protection: Individual CDU members have overcome an internal hurdle on these topics and managed to ensure that their proposals have to be discussed at the party conference. According to the CDU statutes, individual party members are actually not entitled to apply – unless they can gather at least 500 party members as supporters of their application. A corresponding special regulation was included in the statutes in 2017 in order to position the federal party closer to the grassroots. The fact that there was so much support for the issues of equality, migration and climate shows how important these issues are to CDU members.
Timetable until the party conference
There is a fixed timetable until the party conference at the beginning of May with which the meeting and also the European elections that will take place four weeks later are to be prepared. On April 12th and 13th, the party’s application committee will deal with the submitted applications and develop suggestions for how they should be dealt with at the delegates’ meeting.
The CDU wants to present its campaign for the European elections in Berlin on April 19th. Merz and others in the party leadership have repeatedly emphasized the importance of this election. It is the first nationwide vote since the disaster for the Union in the 2021 federal election. The Union also wants to make the European elections a vote on the traffic light government of the SPD, Greens and FDP under Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), which it has much criticized. The CDU, like all established parties, is anxiously awaiting how the AfD will perform – in the past, European elections were often considered “reminder elections”.
Will Merz improve his 2022 election result?
Merz would like to be confirmed in office by the 1001 delegates for the first time. At the end of January 2022, in the middle of the corona pandemic, he was elected chairman for the first time at a digital party conference with 915 of 983 delegate votes. There were 52 votes against and 16 abstentions. The CDU calculated an approval rating of 94.62 percent. Unlike other parties, the CDU counts abstentions as invalid votes. Including the abstentions, the result for Merz was 93.08 percent.
White elephant in the room: The K question
The party expects that Merz, who is also chairman of the Union parliamentary group and whose power in the Union is considered largely unchallenged, will be confirmed with a better result than in 2022, especially before the upcoming important elections. His supporters in particular are likely to see higher approval as a tailwind for a possible candidacy for chancellor in next year’s federal election.
Merz is considered undisputed in the Union faction
Many in the ranks of the CDU/CSU MPs credit the 68-year-old Sauerlander for leading the parliamentary group again after the power struggle before the 2021 federal election between the then CDU chairman Armin Laschet and CSU leader Markus Söder and the subsequent loss of power in the federal government has united. The decision for the new basic program is intended to be an important pillar in the party’s reorganization of content after 16 years in government of CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The CDU initiated the process for the new basic program after losing power in the 2021 federal election. The current basic program dates from 2007.
Almost no one in the party expects Merz to announce his candidacy for chancellor at the party conference. Especially since he himself had only told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” at the end of February: “I am inclined to suggest that the decision on the candidacy for chancellor be made after the three state elections in East Germany.” He added: “Otherwise these elections will become too much of an early federal election.” Elections will take place in Thuringia and Saxony on September 1st, and in Brandenburg on September 22nd. High AfD results are expected in all three elections.
Söder and Wüst – the possible competitors
Within the Union, Merz is considered by most to be the favorite on the K issue, even because of his positions as party and parliamentary group leader. But CSU boss Markus Söder and North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) are also said to be considering running for office. However, neither of them has commented on this yet. In the event of a premature break in the traffic light coalition, Merz is considered the Union’s natural candidate. Against this background, Söder’s speech at the CDU party conference is eagerly awaited. In any case, the Bavarian has confirmed his coming.