German ruling party picks Merkel ally as its new leader

Germany’s conservative CDU party yesterday chose Armin Laschet, a state leader who has never held national office, as its new chief and the man most likely to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel at the next election.

The 59-year-old politician, who in 2014 questioned US policy to depose Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, was elected as head of the CDU, beating corporate lawyer Friedrich Merz and foreign affairs analyst Norbert Roettgen.

Mr Laschet, the premier of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous, won a run-off vote against Mr Merz, securing 521 votes against 466 for his arch-conservative rival in a ballot of 1,001 party delegates.

The CDU chairman traditionally leads the party and its CSU Bavarian sister party to the polls, meaning Mr Laschet is in pole position to become Germany’s next chancellor. He pledged dialogue with all the country’s democratic parties, and said these were times in which democrats had to stand together.

“The phrase ‘unity, justice and freedom’ is more topical than ever,” he said, referring to the opening stanza of the German national anthem.

“Let us fight together for these principles against all those who want to endanger them.”

Mr Laschet is a sworn Merkel loyalist who famously stuck by the chancellor in 2015, when Germany left its borders open to hundreds of thousands of migrants from Syria and other hot spots.

If anything, he is seen as even more pro-migration than Mrs Merkel, celebrating diversity as an economic and social boon to his state.