{"id":24634,"date":"2018-12-07T09:23:33","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T09:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=24634"},"modified":"2018-12-07T09:23:33","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T09:23:33","slug":"germanys-conservative-cdu-party-to-vote-on-merkels-successor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=24634","title":{"rendered":"Germany’s conservative CDU party to vote on Merkel’s successor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is set to elect on Friday a new leader to succeed\u00a0Angela Merkel<\/a>, who led the conservative party for 18 years.<\/p>\n

Merkel, 64, decided not to seek a re-election<\/a> to the post but wants to stay on as Germany’s chancellor until 2021.<\/p>\n

The frontrunners are Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a Merkel protege seen as the continuity candidate, and Friedrich Merz, a Merkel rival who has questioned the constitutional guarantee of asylum to all “politically persecuted” and believes Germany<\/a>, Europe’s biggest economy, should contribute more to the European Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Germany: Leadership race for Angela Merkel’s replacement<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Merkel had said in October she would step down as the party chief but remain the chancellor, an effort to manage her exit after a series of setbacks since her divisive decision in 2015 to keep German borders open to refugees fleeing war in the Middle East<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new CDU leader will be chosen by 1,001 delegates who vote in a secret ballot at a party congress in Hamburg.<\/p>\n

The winner will likely lead the CDU in the next federal election, due by October 2021.<\/p>\n

A survey by pollster Infratest dimap for broadcaster ARD on Thursday showed 47 percent of CDU members favoured Kramp-Karrenbauer compared with 37 percent for Merz and 12 percent for Health Minister Jens Spahn.<\/p>\n

Merz, 63, who lost out to Merkel in a power struggle in 2002 and is returning to politics after a decade in business, is backed by CDU members tired of Merkel’s consensual politics. He won support this week from party veteran Wolfgang Schaeuble.<\/p>\n

To win, a candidate must secure more than 50 percent of the valid votes cast. If there is no winner after the first round of voting, a runoff is held between the two candidates to win most votes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dangerous candidate<\/h2>\n

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier, a Merkel ally, said: “I am convinced that with Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer we have the best chance of the CDU winning an election.” She would be the most dangerous candidate to face the centre-left Social Democrats and the ecologist Greens, he added.<\/p>\n

Kramp-Karrenbauer’s trump card is her record as a former state premier in Saarland, where she led a broad coalition with the Greens and pro-business Free Democrats, alliance-building skills useful in Germany’s fractured political landscape.<\/p>\n

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WATCH: Angela Merkel – ‘This is my last term as German chancellor’ (2:25)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Kramp-Karrenbauer, 56, has differentiated herself from Merkel on social and foreign policy by voting in favour of quotas for women on corporate boards, opposed by Merkel, and by taking a tougher line on Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She told Reuters last week Europe<\/a> and the United States should consider blockading Russian ships over the Ukraine<\/a> crisis.<\/p>\n

But on what lies ahead for the CDU, Kramp-Karrenbauer says: “I have no particular recipe.”<\/p>\n

By contrast, Merz takes clear positions that appeal to rank-and-file party members hungry for a more clearly defined party after 13 years under Merkel as chancellor. He wants tax cuts, a stronger EU and a more robust approach to challenging the far-right.<\/p>\n

Merz will benefit from the fact that 296 of the delegates at the congress – almost a third – will be from his home state, the western region of North Rhine-Westphalia.<\/p>\n

One senior CDU official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said many delegates were undecided before the congress and could be swayed by how the candidates present themselves on Friday.<\/p>\n

“It could come down to the speeches on the day,” he said.<\/p>\n

Merkel has led Germany since 2005 and has moved the party and the country steadily towards the political centre.<\/p>\n

“I’m very grateful that I could be party chairwoman for 18 years – it is a very, very long time and the CDU of course had its ups and downs,” Merkel said as she arrived at the conference venue in Hamburg.<\/p>\n

“But we won four national elections together… and I am happy I can remain chancellor.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is set to elect on Friday a new leader to succeed\u00a0Angela Merkel, who led the conservative party for 18 years. Merkel, 64, decided not to seek a re-election to the post but wants to stay on as Germany’s chancellor until 2021. The frontrunners are Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a Merkel protege…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":24635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}