THE executive committee of Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) backed party chairman Armin Laschet yesterday as the conservative bloc’s candidate for chancellor at federal elections in September, party sources said. Committee members attested to Laschet’s “ability to bring opinions together, to develop a stance and to represent it consistently,” the sources said. The candidacy question came to a head Sunday when Markus Soeder, leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU, put himself forward to run and said he would settle the question soon and amicably with Laschet, his rival. Pressure is mounting for a swift decision on who should stand for the two-party bloc as the candidate to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has ruled out standing for a fifth term. As the larger partner in the CDU/CSU alliance, the CDU’s choice of candidate is likely to be decisive, sources in the alliance say. Laschet, 60, is a centrist widely seen as a candidate who would continue Merkel’s legacy, but he has clashed with her over coronavirus restrictions. Premier of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, his chaotic handling of the crisis has undermined his popularity. Soeder, 54, is an astute political operator who has sided with Merkel during the pandemic. No CSU leader has become German chancellor. The conservative bloc has slipped to about 27 percent in polls, partly due to an increasingly chaotic management of the pandemic. In the 2017 election, it won almost 33 percent. (SD-Agencies) |