Berlin – (AFP)
German conservatives on Saturday elected by a large majority Friedrich Merz, a former rival of Angela Merkel, as their new president, with the task of correcting the course of a party exhausted since its defeat in the legislative elections.
Some 980 CDU delegates voted during a video conference due to the pandemic. The voter turnout approached 95 percent in favor of the 66-year-old MP, knowing that he was the only candidate following he was considered the most likely party member in December.
Frederick Merz expressed his “great affection” with these results, following he had failed twice to reach this position in recent years. He promised to return to a traditional conservative approach following years of centrist Merkel led. He will have to revive a party that has been in deep crisis since its resounding loss in the legislative elections on September 26, when it achieved the weakest results in its history.
The poor performance prompted outgoing party chief and losing candidate for chancellor Armin Laschet to withdraw. Merz called the party Saturday to close ranks. “We must be a strong opposition,” he said. We want to win the elections,” he said, referring to several regional elections due this year.
Having led Germany for 16 years, the CDU was in opposition for the next four years to a government formed by Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats with the Liberal Party and the Greens. And he attacked the new leader of the Conservatives, accusing Schulz of inaction, both in the discussion of compulsory vaccination once morest Covid-19 and in the Ukraine crisis.
Frederick Merz makes no secret of his desire to end the Merkel era, knowing that he did not attack the former chancellor directly. Their rivalry dates back to the beginning of the second millennium when Merkel was the head of the Christian Democratic Union and excluded him from heading the party’s parliamentary group.
In 2009, Merz withdrew permanently from political life and returned to work in the financial field. He worked as a lawyer in a large office in Dusseldorf, and made millions following taking sensitive positions in large German companies.
