The ruling German party supports Laschet as a candidate to succeed Merkel as chancellor

Armin Laschet has won the support of Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union in its attempt to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor, following a campaign that exposed deep cracks in the party five months before the national elections.

Thirty-one of the 46 members of the CDU executive committee supported Laschet in a secret ballot, with his rival, Markus Söder, prime minister of Bavaria, receiving only nine, according to the party. There were six abstentions.

The result makes Laschet almost certain that he will be the chancellor’s candidate in the September Bundestag elections, when Merkel will retire after 16 years as Germany’s leader.

Söder, who is the leader of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of the CDU, had said he would accept a clear vote in favor of Laschet.

But the vote revealed deep suspicion among older Christian Democrats over Laschet’s suitability to run. The party executive had given its unanimous support to his candidacy last week, but only got 77.5% of the vote, and 22.5% went to Söder.

Laschet, 60, had elected leader of the CDU in January. But he has fought at the polls and many in the CDU / CSU bloc thought they were more likely to win the election with Söder as a candidate.

The chaos within the ruling party has also reflected its performance at the polls. The CDU rose to almost 40% last year as voters rewarded it Skillful handling of Germany of the first wave of coronavirus pandemic.

But its approval rating has shrunk in 2021 as public anger has spread over the slow rate of vaccines against Covid-19 and the revelation that some deputies won huge commissions in offers to purchase facial masks.

The CDU also faces a strong challenge from the Greens ’opposition, which some pollsters believed could take the chancellery to the polls. The party chose Annalena Baerbock, a 40-year-old MP, as a candidate for chancellor, in a smooth process that marked a stark contrast to the open power struggle in the CDU / CSU.

The son of a miner, Laschet studied law and edited a Catholic newspaper before being elected to the Bundestag in 1994. He served as a minister in the government of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, in the 1990s. and became prime minister there in 2017.

Laschet is an ideological ally of Merkel and has said that if elected chancellor, she would continue her policies halfway. She was considered for a long time like her natural successor.

But its popularity has suffered throughout the pandemic, when it has found itself hesitant and erratic. By contrast, Söder, who earned a reputation as a decisive crisis manager, has seen his vote rise.

Laschet was approved on Monday by some of the CDU’s major influencers, including Wolfgang Schäuble, the former finance minister and chairman of the Bundestag, Volker Bouffier, prime minister of the western state of Hesse, and Ralph Brinkhaus, leader of the CDU / CSU group.

But other members of the executive, such as Peter Altmaier, economy minister and a close ally of Merkel, favored Söder, an action that will greatly damage Laschet’s authority.

The prime ministers of Saxony-Anhalt and Saarland also broke ranks with Laschet in recent days and left their weight behind Söder, saying he enjoyed much more support among party members. The powerful youth wing of the CDU, the Junge Union, also supported the Bavarian.

Söder gained support among many CDU MPs who fear they will lose their seats in September if Laschet leads the campaign.

Some attending Monday’s meeting said the CDU / CSU parliamentary group and the party’s regional leaders should be involved in any decision on who should run for chancellery.

But Laschet insisted that only the executive could decide and demanded a vote to resolve the issue. “We should decide today, as we had planned at the beginning,” he said, according to participants.

Söder made it clear that he would respect the CDU executive’s decision, and told reporters this week that he had submitted a proposal to the party “but only the CDU can decide whether it wants to accept that offer.”