Berlin At the beginning Helge Braun set a top against his toughest competitor. The executive head of the Federal Chancellery presented his program and his team for the CDU chairmanship at the federal press conference, “here in East Berlin,” as he said in greeting. Friedrich Merz had previously drawn ridicule for wrongly locating the Neukölln Hotel Estrel, where he presented his campaign a week ago, in East Berlin.
Now Braun followed as the last candidate – and immediately caused another surprise. At the federal press conference he was accompanied by the former North Rhine-Westphalian integration state secretary Serap Güler, a confidante of the outgoing CDU leader Armin Laschet. And from the CDU digital politician Nadine Schön. If both politicians are elected, Braun provides for prominent tasks: Guler is to become CDU general secretary, and Schön is the party’s program and structure director.
“Women only as representatives,” said Braun, that doesn’t fit in with a modern party. Also a swipe at Merz. He wants to make the Berlin CDU politician Mario Czaja General Secretary and the Baden-Württemberg Bundestag member Christina Stumpp his deputy. This position has yet to be created at the CDU. Röttgen joins the Hamburg Bundestag member Franziska Hoppermann.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Braun sees Merz as his main competitor, which becomes clear during his appearance. Even if the former Union parliamentary group leader no longer competes as “Team Merz”, but as “Team CDU”, many in the party consider him to be a lone fighter who is primarily concerned with himself.
The man in the background
The current head of the Chancellery has a different image. For the past eight years, he mainly worked in the background for Angela Merkel. His supporters describe him as unpretentious, calm and fighting for the cause, his opponents as drowsy and dull. In any case, Braun made it clear that he sees rebuilding the CDU as a team task. And he wants to cement the relationship with the sister party CSU and its chairman Markus Söder. That should be easier for him than Merz. The former Union parliamentary group leader and the CSU chairman are reluctantly connected. Braun and Söder worked together to fight corona.
There can only be one: The CDU members have to choose between Helge Braun, Friedrich Merz and Norbert Röttgen (from left).
(Photo: imago images / Political-Moments)
The CDU must also represent its social breadth in the leadership, said Braun. This includes the fact that he wants “two high-profile minds” to lead the party and parliamentary group. Braun himself would be satisfied with the CDU chairmanship. “I am not aiming for the position of group chairman,” he said. He has worked “very well” with incumbent Ralph Brinkhaus in recent years.
This statement is important to many in the group. They fear that after the election of the party leader there could be the next power struggle for the parliamentary group chairmanship. Röttgen has already made it clear that he wants to work with Brinkhaus. Merz, however, has not yet ruled out taking on both positions.
While Merz mainly addresses the economic wing and the conservatives in the party, Röttgen already stood in the last election as a liberal modernizer, who, as a former environment minister, also occupied the mega-issue of climate protection.
What Braun stands for is unlikely to have been clear to many of the 400,000 or so party members who decide on the chairmanship for the first time in CDU history. Braun had only published a member letter on its website. In it he declares that he wants to involve the members more closely and raise the party’s profile. Otherwise, he continued to appear primarily as Merkel’s corona manager.
Braun stands for continuity
It is clear that Braun, as a close confidante of Merkel, would stand for continuity, Merz, on the other hand, for a break. The executive head of the Chancellery praised the past 16 years under the Chancellor, describing them as a highly successful time for the country. With this he serves the camp of Merkel supporters, which in the party is not as small as is often assumed.
At the same time, Braun promises a renewal in terms of content and personnel. He emphasizes the party’s conservative, liberal and social roots. But unlike Merz, he does not see the deficit in the maintenance of the conservative brand core first. “Our social roots were not sufficiently visible in the election campaign,” said Braun. His analysis reads: Due to the coalition with the SPD, the CDU was too often perceived as the party that slows down social projects.
Braun wants to turn the CDU into a party “for hard-working people”. It is about job security, pensions, but also the living environment when people fear rising rents. The CDU must provide answers to this. So it is fitting that his desired general secretary Guler says of herself that she is “a working class child”.
More: The breathtaking slogan of Helge Braun.