(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer’s election as the leader of Germany’s biggest party, the Christian Democratic Union, looks like a happy story: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chosen successor isn’t likely to negate her legacy, and the CDU is up in the polls. Reality, however, is more complicated.
Kramp-Karrenbauer, often referred to as AKK, won with only 52 percent of the vote to 48 percent for Friedrich Merz, the strongly pro-business, relatively hardline candidate who attempted to make a political comeback after Merkel chased him out of top-level politics a decade ago. At the party conference in Hamburg, where men outnumbered women two to one and many had hoped for a decisive change from what they saw as a leftward swing during the Merkel era, AKK’s victory was far from universally celebrated, though Merz looked at ease as he graciously congratulated her.
Wolfgang Schaeuble, speaker of the German parliament and the party’s doyen, had openly backed Merz; on Monday, he thought it necessary to tell people in his camp not to rock the boat. “Whoever thinks of a rematch or even revenge now is wrong,” Schaeuble said. “That’s not how democracy works.”
The hotly, though courteously, contested leadership election showed, refreshingly, that the CDU was still capable of sparkling internal debate after almost two decades of Merkel’s stifling ascendancy. But it also showed, for the first time in the center-right party’s history, that it was split down the middle. It could easily be two parties rather than one: a law-and-order, identitarian, pro-big business, right-wing political force to rival the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) — and a compassionate, egalitarian, moderate party that is Christian in more than its name. Only the second of these parties backs AKK.
It’s inevitable that a big-tent party should include different factions, and the CDU has always had them, but the current ideological split almost makes it look like the U.S. Republicans — an uneasy coalition of nativists, libertarians and pro-business moderates.
Kramp-Karrenbauer is trying to deal with it. Almost her first move as party leader was to nominate Paul Ziemiak, leader of the CDU youth organization, for her old position of party secretary general. Ziemiak, a critic of Merkel’s immigration policy, hadn’t supported AKK’s bid. He would have preferred Merz (he comes from the same regional party organization) or the third candidate, Health Minister Jens Spahn, who is popular among young Christian Democrats. Zemiak was elected by about 60 percent of the delegates, an unusually low support level that reflects how deeply the CDU is divided. “My goal is to unite the party, to bring it together,” AKK said in an interview published on Monday. “That’s why I’m happy he’s working with me.”
But the healing process may be complicated. It would work better if Merz took part, but he refused to join the party leadership and didn’t even stay until the end of the conference. His plans are unclear; it’s been rumored that he might be offered a ministerial post, but given that Merkel, his old nemesis, still runs the government, a return to business is more likely for him. AKK said in the interview that she’d set up a meeting with Merz to discuss how he might be make himself useful to the party.
AKK’s other problem is that she must spend more than two years working in Merkel’s shadow, waiting for her to vacate the chancellor’s job — either that or stab her mentor in the back.
For now, political momentum is on AKK’s side. An influential poll taken after the leadership election showed the CDU gaining three percentage points compared with its pre-conference support. AKK’s election pleased not just 62 percent of CDU supporters but also 61 percent of Green voters and 55 percent of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). This would augur well for a future Chancellor Kramp-Karrenbauer: She’d be welcomed by the CDU’s current governing coalition partners, the SPD, and after a new election, she’d likely be able to build a coalition with the Greens, now Germany’s second-strongest party.
But the poll has the CDU at just 32 percent, still close to historic lows, and two more years of Merkel’s government, which has been uninspired recently, might do AKK’s ambitions no favors. On the other hand, Merkel has stressed that she’d like to serve out her term, and if she’s unwilling to go, trying to get rid of her wouldn’t reflect well on AKK, either.
The potential two years of AKK’s purgatory include next year’s European Parliament election. Because of its relative unimportance to German domestic affairs, the protest vote may be strong, and if the CDU doesn’t do well, AKK’s leadership will be in doubt.
It might be best for AKK and the party if an early election were held simultaneously with the European one; that, however, would require Merkel’s active cooperation and the dissolution of the current coalition, which Merkel spent a lot of energy building and keeping together.
German politics are suddenly more exciting than they’ve been for a long time. That, however, means a lot of pitfalls for AKK to avoid. The high of her narrow victory won’t last long.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Philip Gray at philipgray@bloomberg.net
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Leonid Bershidsky is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering European politics and business. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.
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