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Sunday, December 9, 2018
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer new CDU leader
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer elected Merkel's successor as CDU leader
Winner of party vote tipped to become Germany’s next chancellor and Europe’s most powerful politician
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer waves after narrowly beating her main opponent, Friedrich Merz.
Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a staunchly Catholic conservative career politician, has been elected as the successor to Angela Merkel as leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats. Kramp-Karrenbauer won by just 25 votes following a nail-biting second
round run-off against her main opponent, the multi-millionaire
businessman Friedrich Merz. Wiping away tears, Kramp-Karrenbauer said she would accept the post,
and thanked the party for its support and trust in her, insisting she
would give new impetus to the party as it seeks to claw back the
millions of voters it has lost to rightwing populists and the Greens in
recent years. “We should harness the boost this competition has given us, and use it to propel the party’s success,” she said.
Dubbed a mini-Merkel - a title she is determined to discard -
Kramp-Karrenbauer was not officially endorsed by the chancellor, but was
clearly her favourite, having been propelled by her to the position of
the party’s general secretary in February.But in a veiled sign of her support earlier in the day, Merkel made a
point of praising Kramp-Karrenbauer for her contribution to the CDU’s
electoral success during a valedictory speech to the party on Friday
morning.The result is seen as making it more likely that Merkel will be able
to see out her fourth term until 2021. She has expressed her
determination to stay on as chancellor for the remaining three years of
her term in office and 56% of Germans support her decision to do so,
polls show. Kramp-Karrenbauer had won the first round of voting, securing 45% or 450 votes, and went on to win 517 votes in the second. The vote followed a nail-biting contest after Merkel announced in
late October she was stepping down as party chief but intended to
continue as chancellor until the next elections. Merz, 63, an economics lawyer who was ousted as parliamentary leader
of the CDU by Merkel in 2002, this time received 482 votes in the second
round, and 392 in the first. Friedrich Merz delivers a speech to delegates at the
party’s annual conference on Friday. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty
Images
He had taken the party by surprise after parachuting in from his
high-powered job in the banking industry, insisting he could win back
many of the voters the party has lost to rightwing populism.His supporters said Merz would have been the more courageous option
because he was determined to take the party away from the centre ground
where Merkel had firmly kept it during her 18 years at the helm.The vote marks a new era for the party, founded in 1945, which has provided Germany with a chancellor for 50 years of the last seven decades. Merkel told the party faithful on Friday it was “time for a change”. Kramp-Karrenbauer - or AKK as she is popularly known, not least
because many Germans find her double-barrelled name difficult to
pronounce - will now be viewed as a potential future chancellor if the
CDU wins the next election in 2021. The mother of three, a self-professed strict Catholic who has served
as state leader of Saarland and before that was its interior minister,
has a total of 18 years’ leadership experience, all of which stood her
in good stead to win the vote. The third candidate in the running, Jens Spahn, 38, refused to
withdraw his candidature, despite pressure from party colleagues to do
so when it was clear that support for him was weak. Made health minister
in Merkel’s government six months ago, he had been considered a
frontrunner for several years to succeed Merkel but was pushed aside
when Merz decided to throw his hat into the ring and won the support of
party heavyweights, such as the president of the Bundestag and Merkel’s
former economics minister Wolfgang Schäuble.
Spahn secured a higher than expected 175 votes out of 999, but was not eligible for the second round.Over 1,000 party delegates were eligible to vote on what was
described as the most momentous decision for the party in nearly 50
years and one that would decide the future direction not only of the
CDU, but also of the country and the continent.The party has faced a dilemma, to either keep itself on the course
set by Merkel – who was determined to secure the centre ground and has
turned the CDU into a champion of gay marriage, a minimum wage and a
quota for women in politics - or to take it more to the right in an
attempt to win back the voters lost to the Alternative für Deutschland
(AfD). In Kramp-Karrenbauer it has arguably chosen a safer option than Merz,
not least because she is likely to have an easier relationship with
Merkel in the chancellery than Merz, who is seen as having a grudge
against Merkel. Kramp-Karrenbauer’s victory is a sign that the party
wants to continue on the path set for it by Merkel. Nevertheless, Kramp-Karrenbauer has repeatedly said she would forge
her own path, and is decidedly more socially conservative than her
predecessor. She told party delegates she was “not a mini version” of
Merkel, but her “own person”. “I have read a lot about what I am and who I am: ‘mini’, a copy,
simply ‘more of the same’. Dear delegates, I stand before you as I am
and as life made me and I am proud of that,” she said.
Kramp-Karrenbauer reacts after being announced the winner of the party leadership contest. Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
Although she supported Merkel’s open-door migration policy in 2015,
Kramp-Karrenbauer is in favour of tightening migration, she is against
same-sex marriage and has argued for more restrictions placed on doctors
carrying out abortion. But she also takes a liberal approach to other issues, voting in favour of a minimum wage, and supporting a women’s quota. Some say she is still largely an unknown quantity, having played out most of her political life in Saarland. Thousands of CDU members descended on Hamburg for the spectacle, as
well as over 1,600 accredited journalists and hundreds of diplomats and
political observers. Watching from the sidelines, Udo Tappe, a long-time
CDU member described it as the most exiting moment for the party in
decades. “My heart was with AKK, my head with Merz,” the 77-year-old retired
Hamburg estate agent admitted. “I think that Kramp-Karrenbauer is better
in that she has a lot more political successes behind her than Merz,
but I wonder how she will stand up to the likes of autocrats like
Erdogan and Putin, which Merkel did well.” Earlier in the day Merkel fought back tears after CDU delegates gave
her a 10-minute standing ovation after she delivered an emotional speech
marking the end of her leadership, which she said had been both
“challenging” and “a joy”.
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Betty MacDonald Fan Club, founded by Wolfgang Hampel, has members in 40 countries.
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