Merkel Weighs In on Succession in Visit to Contender’s Home Turf

(Bloomberg) -- Chancellor Angela Merkel waded into the political battle over her succession, giving a boost to the candidate in her own ranks whose bid to replace her has faltered during the pandemic.

Merkel on Tuesday attended a cabinet meeting in North Rhine-Westphalia chaired by Armin Laschet. The premier of Germany’s most populous state, home to the nation’s industrial heartland, has stumbled in his effort to seize the leadership of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union -- a role which would make him the front-runner to succeed her as chancellor when she leaves office after the next election due in the fall of 2021.

While Merkel said that she won’t intervene directly in the decision to replace her, she said Laschet brought “a lot of qualifications.”

“If you govern the largest state in the Federal Republic of Germany in a CDU-led coalition that works efficiently and isn’t known for a lot of infighting, then that’s at least some ammunition that carries weight,” the chancellor said in the state capital Dusseldorf alongside Laschet.

The visit comes around a month after Merkel made a similar trip to see the Bavarian state leader, Markus Soeder, an event marked by royal optics that fueled speculation over his own prospects as a future chancellor. Soeder heads the Christian Social Union, the CDU’s Bavarian sister party.

Polls show that the CDU/CSU candidate will most likely be the next chancellor. While the bloc lost two points in a Kantar survey published Sunday in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, it’s still the clear leader. Its support of 36% is still double the SPD -- Merkel’s junior coalition partner -- which got a three-point bounce after Finance Minister Olaf Scholz announced his candidacy. That put the party ahead of the Greens, which slipped to 16%.

The dueling state cabinet meetings play into the contest to replace Merkel, a watershed moment for Europe’s biggest economy after 15 years of her stewardship.

The CDU leadership battle was upended by the coronavirus crisis. A special meeting to elect a leader scheduled for April was scrapped. The party said Monday it’s standing by plans to hold a scaled-down conference in Stuttgart in December, where delegates will elect the new leader.

Merkel’s office pushed back against the idea that the visit is a rescue mission for Laschet. In addition to the state capital of Dusseldorf, she traveled to the iconic Zollverein coal mining complex in Essen, a UNESCO world heritage site.

Laschet needs all the help he can get. A pro-business moderate, he had been in pole position to assume the CDU leadership when he announced his candidacy in February. But his political star has faded during the pandemic when he was outshone by Soeder, as well as Health Minister Jens Spahn, a CDU conservative who backed Laschet’s bid.

Soeder and Spahn both won plaudits as decisive and effective crisis managers, while Laschet’s more laissez-faire approach was badly received by voters.

Badly Wounded

The party leadership contest was also disrupted by the announcement last week Scholz, Merkel’s deputy chancellor, will run as the Social Democrats’ chancellor candidate, a rare demonstration of party unity more than a year before the election is due.

The political maneuvering has left Laschet badly wounded. Only 13% of Germans consider him a viable head of the federal government, according to the Kantar survey.

That puts him well behind other contenders. Soeder, who has pushed back on speculation about a bid, won 38% in the same poll, with Scholz at 29%. Laschet’s main challenger within the CDU, Friedrich Merz, scored 19%. Even the Greens’ potential candidate, Robert Habeck, had 18%.

Still, Laschet may have an opening after Soeder’s reputation as a crisis manager took a hit last week. After ordering vacationers in regions with rising virus numbers to be tested on their return, his health officials were quickly overwhelmed as thousands of tests weren’t properly processed. Soeder cited “mistakes,” though stopped short of firing his health minister.

Strong Challenge

The conservative candidate must by decided jointly by the CDU and the CSU sister party, though it has traditionally gone to the larger party.

Outgoing CDU chairwoman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer triggered the leadership battle in February when she dropped her bid to replace Merkel and surrendered the party leadership. Laschet emerged as the most likely winner after getting Spahn’s backing, though he faces a strong challenge from Merkel-critic Merz, as well as an outside bid from CDU lawmaker Norbert Roettgen.

Scholz’s candidacy has raised the question of whether the CDU can afford to wait four months until it chooses a leader. Laschet, asked whether the party could decide on a new leader before that, responded that he favored a “team solution” in February, when Merz declined to get behind him.

“At the moment, there is no reason to believe that the team could grow,” Laschet said.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.