Anytime Armin Laschet is stressed, he smiles painfully. And there was a lot of smiling when he emerged at lunchtime on Tuesday as Germany’s centre-right chancellor hopeful. What should have been his moment of triumph was instead lost in a sour mood of division.
Three months ago, Laschet took over as leader of Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with just nine months before the September 26th federal election.
Since then the 60-year-old Aachen native and practising Catholic has lost three months battling his ostensible ally Markus Söder, Bavaria’s state and CSU leader, who also had designs on leading the campaign of their CDU/CSU parliamentary party.
Pointing to his consistent poll lead, Söder acquired a long list of supporters in the CDU, from backbenchers to Merkel cabinet ministers.
Though Söder’s pursuit of power has driven a wedge deep into the CDU/CSU parliamentary party, Laschet insisted it was a “great vote of confidence” in their political alliance.
“I know others would have wished for a different result but this is democracy, weighing up all arguments to make a decision,” said Laschet.
Centrist style
His loyal officials insisted that the time had come to “look forward” but the CDU/CSU is scarred and its backbenchers are scared for their futures.
They laud Laschet for his centrist style and talent as a political bridge builder. But after 16 years of Merkel era consensus politics, many MPs think Söder’s more aggressive style would refresh the voter palate and pivot the CDU/CSU back into power in Berlin.
“Söder’s not everyone’s favourite,” confessed one leading CDU politician to The Irish Times, “but he would have been the better candidate.”
With characteristic bad grace, the Bavarian leader poisoned the political well as he withdrew on Tuesday. Söder said he was “deeply moved” by the “amazing” support from all over the country: CDU regional groups, “courageous” MPs and ministers and “young, modern people who are focused on the future”.
Declining to take questions after his statement, Söder departed the podium, but not before his party secretary Markus Blume insisted his boss, despite his dashed chancellery hopes, was “the candidate of people’s hearts”.
Before Laschet can reach out to new voters, he has to convince his own centre-right alliance MPs that he is their path back to power, not the opposition benches.
On Tuesday evening a new poll delivered a devastating response to the centre-right’s week of in-fighting: the CDU/CSU alliance is down six points to just 21 per cent, according to the Forsa poll – seven points behind the opposition Green Party. Five months of pained Laschet smiles loom large.