Merkel’s successor drops campaign for chancellor
BERLIN — Amid furor over her party’s flirtation with the far right in eastern Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s handpicked successor, Annegret KrampKarrenbauer, said Monday that she would no longer seek the country’s top position, adding to the political uncertainty in Europe’s most important democracy.
The announcement reinforced a profound sense of malaise and political limbo in Germany at a time when neighboring capitals are impatiently looking to Berlin for leadership in a postBrexit Europe.
It has also raised uncomfortable questions over the direction that Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union — still Germany’s biggest party but shrinking fast — will take after she leaves power next year.
Monday’s news followed five days of political turmoil, in which the local chapter of the party in the eastern state of Thuringia voted for the same candidate as the farright Alternative for Germany, prompting a national outcry.
The vote defied KrampKarrenbauer, who as party leader had given clear instructions not to collaborate with the Alternative for Germany at any level. It not only exposed the temptation in some ultraconservative circles of the party to join forces with the far right but also highlighted her lack of authority among her own grassroots.
“The AfD stands against everything that we in the CDU stand for,” KrampKarrenbauer said at a news conference announcing her decision not to seek the top office, referring to the acronyms of the Alternative for Germany and her own Christian Democratic Union. “Any form of rapprochement with the AfD weakens the CDU.”
KrampKarrenbauer, who will remain defense minister, was chosen as leader of Merkel’s conservative party in December 2018 and had been widely expected to succeed her as chancellor. Her victory at the time, over two male and more conservative rivals, had been seen as an endorsement of Merkel’s liberal legacy — and a mandate to preserve it.
But it was a narrow victory, and in the 14 months since, KrampKarrenbauer not only failed to win over the skeptics in her party but also saw her popularity in opinion polls erode.
She said Monday that she will remain in place as party leader until a new leader — and candidate for chancellor — will be picked at a party congress in December.
Several potential candidates are already waiting in the wings, chief among them Friedrich Merz, who narrowly lost to KrampKarrenbauer at the 2018 party conference but is popular with the Christian Democrats’ conservative wing. Merz said earlier this month that he would step down from his job in finance to “serve the country” even more fully.
Another potential contender is Armin Laschet, the centrist leader of NorthRhine Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state. A former junior minister of integration and a staunch defender of Merkel’s refugee policy, Laschet is seen as the candidate of continuity and someone who would find it easy to cooperate with the Greens, a possible coalition partner in the future.