The federal chairman of the CDU is looking for the right strategy after the election defeat in Lower Saxony.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin It was a pithy announcement. With him as chairman, the CDU could “halve” the AfD, Friedrich Merz announced when he failed to run for the CDU party chairmanship at the end of 2018. Four years later, Merz is CDU chairman.
But he has not halved the AfD, it has almost doubled, at least in Lower Saxony. There, the AfD jumped to 10.9 percent on Sunday, while the CDU had its worst election result since 1955 with 28.1 percent.
Merz reacted to the disastrous result in Lower Saxony on Monday with a personnel reorganization. The previous CDU federal manager Stefan Hennewig will be replaced by the former manager Christoph Hoppe.
Merz emphasized that he decided a long time ago to fill the position of managing director – regardless of the outcome of the election in Lower Saxony. From now on he will go back to “work in the party” much more intensively, explained Merz.
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This work also includes dealing with the AfD correctly. The right-wing populists are becoming more and more popular during the crisis, not only in Lower Saxony.
In the CDU one sees the responsibility for this in the traffic light coalition. So says CDU party leader Carsten Linnemann: “After seven months of war, the failure to act at the traffic light in terms of noticeable relief is causing frustration among the population. That also leaves a lot of room for protest votes.”
In the traffic light, on the other hand, you can see the responsibility at Merz. With his statements that Ukrainian war refugees would practice “social tourism”, he drove voters into the arms of the AfD.
Between mainstream and right fringe
The controversial statements show the dilemma in which Merz is. If he says so, he is accused of playing the AfD game. On the other hand, critics accuse him of pandering too much to the left-wing mainstream with the introduction of a women’s quota in the CDU, for example.
One thing is certain: Merz does not seem to be the tractor that the party was hoping for. According to a survey by Infratest Dimap, only 23 percent of respondents are satisfied with his policies. But Merz was combative. The election in Lower Saxony is “a setback,” he says. But he’s not discouraged at all. “On the contrary, it is an incentive for us to work even more intensively on political issues.” dhs/mgr
More: SPD and Greens fear a weakened FDP after the Lower Saxony elections