(Bloomberg) — Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union will accelerate the time frame to choose a new leader as the party struggles to emerge from political turmoil.
A special party conference will be held on April 25, according to a CDU official. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer — the party chairwoman who shocked the party this month by abandoning ambitions of succeeding Merkel as chancellor — set the plan in motion at a leadership meeting on Monday in Berlin.
As contenders line up to lead the party that’s governed Germany since 2005, the incoming CDU chief will most likely be the candidate to run for chancellor at the next election, which is due in the fall of 2021 at the latest. Depending on where the next leader takes the party, a prolonged cohabitation could pressure Merkel to step down earlier.
Kramp-Karrenbauer originally planned to have the party decide on a chief this summer and sign off on the pick at a regular party convention in December.Concerns about the risks of an extended power struggle prodded numerous party officials to push for a faster process. A disastrous election result in Hamburg on Sunday, when the CDU posted its worst performance in the city state since World War II, drove home the need for urgency.
The repercussions threaten to ricochet back to Merkel, who has said she’ll stay on as chancellor until her fourth term ends next year. The split between party chief and Merkel’s role in the chancellery proved unworkable for Kramp-Karrenbauer.
At stake is the direction of Europe’s largest economy as the European Union grapples with stagnating growth, fallout from U.K.’s exit and a withering of the global order as the U.S. recedes from view and China strengthens its footprint.
Kramp-Karrenbauer’s withdrawal on Feb. 10 stoked a crisis in Germany’s political establishment that began when CDU lawmakers in Thuringia cast their lot with the far-right Alternative for Germany to install a premier in the eastern state, breaking a taboo and defying marching orders to not cooperate with extreme right or left.
“There is deep insecurity in the party,” Jens Spahn, a contender for CDU chief, told reporters in Berlin before the meeting on Monday. “We need to make sure that Merkel is not the last CDU chancellor.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at [email protected];Arne Delfs in Berlin at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at [email protected], Chris Reiter
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