Merkel’s party rudderless as virus halts race for successor

THE race to succeed Angela Merkel has been thrown into confusion by the coronavirus crisis.

Mrs Merkel is stepping down as chancellor next year and her Christian Democrat party (CDU) is set to choose a new leader at its annual conference in Stuttgart in December.

But there are fears the event may have to be cancelled because of coronavirus restrictions, leaving the party without a clear leader at the start of a crucial election year.

The leadership contest has already been postponed once because of the crisis, and the party is reportedly desperate not to delay it again. But its hands are tied by German laws which stipulate party leaders must be chosen by delegates at a face-to-face meeting, and cannot be elected by postal ballot.

Mrs Merkel’s government last week extended a ban on large public gatherings until the end of the year, and the CDU is concerned any attempt to claim an exception for its conference could play disastrously with voters. The party is said to be locked in talks over how to bring the 1,001 delegates together without breaching coronavirus rules.

“We have decided that the party conference should take place,” Paul Ziemiak, the CDU general secretary, announced last week. One possibility under discussion is a “staggered conference”, with smaller groups of delegates attending on separate days and speeches given by video conferencing.

The party’s attempts to find a successor to Mrs Merkel have been fraught with problems. Its first choice, the gaffe-prone Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, was elected party leader in 2018 but announced she was stepping down in February after 14 months in the role.

Armin Laschet, the regional prime minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, was favourite to succeed her but has seen his campaign unravel amid widespread dissatisfaction with his handling of the coronavirus.

Friedrich Merz, a long-time Merkel rival and the other main contender, has almost completely faded from public view during the crisis.

Markus Söder, the Bavarian regional leader, has emerged as favourite despite not even being a member of the party. He is the leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and there are calls for him to be parachuted in as chancellor candidate for both parties.

But the gambit has been tried twice before and failed, and some in the CDU are nervous of a Söder candidacy.

All of which has left Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer, still officially party leader and trapped in a job she expected to give up in April, struggling to find a way out.