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Merkel Party Leader’s Ultimatum Contains Rebels, For Now

Merkel’s Party Leader Issues Ultimatum to Rebels Defying Her

(Bloomberg) -- The head of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union defused a brewing leadership challenge on Friday with a blunt ultimatum that buys her time, but may not quell dissent.

CDU party chief, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, told delegates at the annual party convention in Leipzig, Germany they either needed to support or abandon her at once. If they didn’t share the path she had chosen for the party, they should “discuss it today and end it today.”

Her ultimatum drew a seven-minute standing ovation and foiled her fiercest critics. Friedrich Merz, her main rival, pledged his loyalty and praised the chairman’s “pugnacious, courageous” speech. While he continues to stand ready for the party, it is time to show unity, he said.

A series of electoral losses this year for the CDU and repeated mishaps by Kramp-Karrenbauer, also known as AKK, had triggered a mini-revolt seeking to disqualify her as potential candidate to run for the country’s top job. Conceding the CDU had a “difficult year,” the 57-year-old chairwoman gave an 87-minute, often rambling and disconnected speech before she dropped the all-or-nothing bomb.

Michael Kretschmer, the Saxon state premier who followed her at the podium, was quick to offer his support.

“Today we’re not going to end it -- today, we’re just getting going,” Kretschmer told the delegates, in response to AKK’s gambit.

While she achieved the objective of silencing her critics, AKK may have exaggerated with her threat and didn’t appear focused or able to convey a clear target for her party, according to several party officials who heard the speech. The threat to resign can’t be used more than once, said two of the people.

Tilman Kuban, the party’s youth leader, who in October raised the succession issue, said his group was sometimes too vociferous in its demands but then went on to provide a series of recommendations of how where the party needed to be steered.

AKK, who once led the western German state of Saarland, won a tight leadership contest at last year’s party conference and has since struggled to unite the party, prompting resistance to her claim to be the CDU candidate for chancellor when Merkel steps aside in 2021 at the latest.

The succession debate reflects a broader crisis in the CDU like those facing other European centrist parties seeing their poll numbers slide. Merkel’s party has lost voters to the far-right Alternative for Germany as well as the environmentalist Greens. Instead of resolving the issue of who would follow Merkel, AKK’s stewardship has failed to unite the party.

Part of the problem, said legsilator Johann Wadephul, was that the leadership was split between AKK and Merkel, an unusual arrangement for the party.

What everyone agreed upon was that it was time to show voters a face of unity.

“This convention allows us to return to party loyalty,” said Tobias Hans, premier of the western state of Saarland.

To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Leipzig, Germany at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net;Arne Delfs in Leipzig, Germany at adelfs@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Raymond Colitt

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