Angela Merkel's decision not to seek re-election as party leader in December or as chancellor in 2021 was "all part of the plan." How long her final government lasts now depends on who the CDU chooses to replace her.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. Schreiber
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Angela Merkel's potential successors as chancellor
Angela Merkel will be giving up her seat as CDU leader but remain chancellor – likely until the next federal election in 2021. DW examines her potential successors as CDU chief and German chancellor.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Jensen
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, CDU
Kramp-Karrenbauer, also known as AKK, was Merkel's choice to become general secretary of the CDU in 2018. She is reputedly Merkel's pick as a successor as party leader. AKK headed a CDU-SPD coalition as state premier in the small southwestern state of Saarland before becoming the CDU's general secretary. She is considered a moderate who would continue Merkel's centrist policies.
Image: Reuters/H. Hanschke
Jens Spahn, CDU
The 38-year-old is the youngest and most overtly determined Merkel usurper. He entered the Bundestag in 2002 and became Germany's health minister in 2018. Spahn, who is openly gay, is popular in the CDU's conservative wing. He opposes limited dual citizenship for young foreigners, criticized attempts to loosen laws on advertising abortions and called for banning the Burqa in public.
Image: Reuters/K. Pfaffenbach
Friedrich Merz, CDU
The former leader of the CDU/CSU grouping in the Bundestag has been out of frontline politics since leaving the Bundestag in 2009. But the 62-year-old announced his intention to replace Merkel within hours of the news that she would be stepping down. Merz reportedly fell out with Merkel after she replaced him as CDU/CSU group leader in 2002. He has been a chairman at Blackrock since 2016.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. von Jutrczenka
Armin Laschet, CDU
Laschet became state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2017. His win marked a major defeat for Social Democrats in Germany's 18 million-strong "coal" state. He has ruled out running as CDU head while Merkel remains chancellor. But he has hinted that he may announce his candidacy once Merkel has stood down, which would make it possible to occupy both posts simultaneously.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/O. Berg
Julia Klöckner, CDU
Klöckner became agriculture minister in 2018 and has been CDU chief in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate since 2011. In 1995, before entering politics, she became Germany's "Wine Queen." Like Spahn, she belongs to the CDU's conservative wing. She raised eyebrows in 2016 when she proposed an alternative plan to Merkel's refugee policy.
Image: Reuters/K. Pfaffenbach
Peter Altmaier, CDU
Altmeier, known as "Merkel's bodyguard," has supported the chancellor's centrist policy platform on multiple fronts. Originally from Saarland, Altmaier first worked for the European Union before entering the Bundestag in 1994. The former environment minister turned economy minister is renowned for his kitchen diplomacy and being a stickler for policy detail.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Kahnert
Ursula von der Leyen, CDU
Von der Leyen became defense minister in 2013 after serving a stint as labor minister. Despite her reform efforts, defense spending remains stubbornly low and the military continues to suffer from widespread equipment shortages. Von der Leyen, who studied in the United States and Britain, supports a larger role for Germany abroad and improving links between national armies in the European Union.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Images/M. Kappeler
Volker Bouffier, CDU
Volker Bouffier has been the premier of the central state of Hesse since 2010. He formerly served as the state's interior minister and has twice "won" Big Brother awards from German data privacy advocates for propagating closer surveillance methods by police. The 66-year-old currently heads a CDU-Greens state government in Hesse and is a deputy chairperson in the national CDU executive.
Merkel made every effort to make it seem like this was all part of the plan. In a typically calm and contained press conference at CDU HQ in Berlin, the chancellor said she had made the decision to relinquish the party helm months ago — though she admitted it was a major U-turn from her previous conviction that the chancellor had to be the party leader.
"That is a risk, no question," she told reporters, "but after weighing up the advantages and disadvantages I still came to the conclusion that it is justified. … I, with this decision, will contribute to helping the government to finally concentrate on governing well. … I want my party to have the freedom to be able to prepare properly for the future."
German Chancellor Merkel says she will not seek re-election
At first glance, the move could be read as a tactical retreat: placate internal party critics to preserve her final chancellorship a little longer. It certainly meant she avoided the ugly spectacle of a hostile leadership challenge from the right of the party at the CDU's December party conference.
Unsurprisingly, those particular vultures began circling within hours of Merkel's announcement, as prominent critic Health Minister Jens Spahn and former rival Friedrich Merz announced their candidacies.
The vultures are circling: Health Minister Jens SpahnImage: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Kappeler
The surprise move
Olaf Böhnke, analyst at the independent think tank Das Progressive Zentrum, said the move "proved once more that she's one of the best crisis managers I've ever seen." "Usually she goes with the image that she's the last to react to something," he told DW. "She leaves others to discuss the political issues and when the consensus is on the horizon, then she steps up."
But Merkel's timing had caught everyone off guard. After all, the Hesse election result was not as bad as it could have been: The CDU was still the strongest party and still had a (wafer-thin) mandate to carry on governing with the Green party. But, argued Böhnke, Merkel knew that the underlying trend demanded some kind of symbolic move.
"She has the feeling that things are going wrong and something has to change," said Böhnke. "And I could imagine that this really makes a difference for people who had been very skeptical. They lost because people felt the CDU had lost touch with its base, and this could be the symbolic step to show she understood."
Angela Merkel's potential successors as chancellor
Angela Merkel will be giving up her seat as CDU leader but remain chancellor – likely until the next federal election in 2021. DW examines her potential successors as CDU chief and German chancellor.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Jensen
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, CDU
Kramp-Karrenbauer, also known as AKK, was Merkel's choice to become general secretary of the CDU in 2018. She is reputedly Merkel's pick as a successor as party leader. AKK headed a CDU-SPD coalition as state premier in the small southwestern state of Saarland before becoming the CDU's general secretary. She is considered a moderate who would continue Merkel's centrist policies.
Image: Reuters/H. Hanschke
Jens Spahn, CDU
The 38-year-old is the youngest and most overtly determined Merkel usurper. He entered the Bundestag in 2002 and became Germany's health minister in 2018. Spahn, who is openly gay, is popular in the CDU's conservative wing. He opposes limited dual citizenship for young foreigners, criticized attempts to loosen laws on advertising abortions and called for banning the Burqa in public.
Image: Reuters/K. Pfaffenbach
Friedrich Merz, CDU
The former leader of the CDU/CSU grouping in the Bundestag has been out of frontline politics since leaving the Bundestag in 2009. But the 62-year-old announced his intention to replace Merkel within hours of the news that she would be stepping down. Merz reportedly fell out with Merkel after she replaced him as CDU/CSU group leader in 2002. He has been a chairman at Blackrock since 2016.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. von Jutrczenka
Armin Laschet, CDU
Laschet became state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2017. His win marked a major defeat for Social Democrats in Germany's 18 million-strong "coal" state. He has ruled out running as CDU head while Merkel remains chancellor. But he has hinted that he may announce his candidacy once Merkel has stood down, which would make it possible to occupy both posts simultaneously.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/O. Berg
Julia Klöckner, CDU
Klöckner became agriculture minister in 2018 and has been CDU chief in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate since 2011. In 1995, before entering politics, she became Germany's "Wine Queen." Like Spahn, she belongs to the CDU's conservative wing. She raised eyebrows in 2016 when she proposed an alternative plan to Merkel's refugee policy.
Image: Reuters/K. Pfaffenbach
Peter Altmaier, CDU
Altmeier, known as "Merkel's bodyguard," has supported the chancellor's centrist policy platform on multiple fronts. Originally from Saarland, Altmaier first worked for the European Union before entering the Bundestag in 1994. The former environment minister turned economy minister is renowned for his kitchen diplomacy and being a stickler for policy detail.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Kahnert
Ursula von der Leyen, CDU
Von der Leyen became defense minister in 2013 after serving a stint as labor minister. Despite her reform efforts, defense spending remains stubbornly low and the military continues to suffer from widespread equipment shortages. Von der Leyen, who studied in the United States and Britain, supports a larger role for Germany abroad and improving links between national armies in the European Union.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Images/M. Kappeler
Volker Bouffier, CDU
Volker Bouffier has been the premier of the central state of Hesse since 2010. He formerly served as the state's interior minister and has twice "won" Big Brother awards from German data privacy advocates for propagating closer surveillance methods by police. The 66-year-old currently heads a CDU-Greens state government in Hesse and is a deputy chairperson in the national CDU executive.
Image: Reuters
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Accelerating the transition
Other pundits saw the move as a way of managing her exit as gracefully as possible. As Josef Janning, Berlin chief at the European Council for Foreign Relations, pointed out, few expected her to try again in 2021 anyway, so this decision was only natural. "Even if she had tried for re-election [as party leader] in December, that would not change her term as chancellor," he told DW.
Janning said the surprising timing suggests she is preparing to end the grand coalition government with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) before the full five-year term is up. "She's accelerating the process," he said. "Her strategy for months has been to stay in office, but not run for re-election. Now, depending on how her party responds, she can use the next rift in the coalition to say: That's it."
How long Merkel's final government survives depends on who replaces her as party leader in December. That person will almost certainly be the candidate the CDU sends into the race to succeed Merkel as chancellor in the next election.
If the party elects a Merkel loyalist, like General Secretary Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer or Economy Minister Peter Altmaier, the coalition will probably last longer with Merkel at the helm. But if the next leader is a Merkel critic, like Spahn or former parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz, he would probably push for new elections sooner rather than later.
"If Spahn or Merz become the successors, the CDU is in a better position to at least gain back voters from the [far-right] AfD camp," said Böhnke. "But if you look into the results from Hesse [Sunday], you will see the CDU lost more votes to the Greens."
How will the party respond?
Merkel will certainly have her preferences, but she won't be saying them in public — and she definitely won't want to make way as chancellor before an election, according to Janning. "Some of her potential successors would very much like her to leave the chancellery as soon as possible, so that a successor could campaign out of the chancellery," he said. "My reading of her is that she will not do that: She will not give her successor that benefit — her loyalty to the party will not go that far."
For Merkel, this is how a smooth transition should work — leave the party to prepare the ground with a new candidate, while she quietly continues running the country till her time is up, whenever that may be. Asked whether this made her a lame duck, she replied, "Everything has its advantages and disadvantages; I've decided on this option, and it's not anything special, even internationally," she said.
