What will Angela Merkel’s resignation as CDU leader mean for Germany?

By T.N. | BERLIN

LATE LAST month Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, said that she would step down as leader of the ruling Christian Democratic Union in December. Mrs Merkel has run the centre-right party for 18 years (and Germany for 13). Her decision, which followed the drubbing of the CDU in a state election, has electrified German politics. Mrs Merkel’s successor as party leader will have a strong chance of succeeding her as chancellor—perhaps as soon as next year (although Mrs Merkel wishes to serve out her term until 2021). The CDU’s standing in polls has steadily dwindled since a federal election in September 2017, and its “grand coalition”, with the Social Democrats (SPD) as junior partner, has stumbled from crisis to crisis. If the Merkel era in Germany has not yet come to an end, it has certainly entered its twilight (what some Germans call Merkeldämmerung).

Of the dozen or so candidates to take over the CDU leadership, three stand out. Mrs Merkel’s presumed favourite, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (known universally as “AKK” and pictured above with the chancellor) is moderate, well connected in the party, and ran one of Germany’s states for seven years. But she is battling to throw off the “mini-Merkel” moniker bestowed on her by sceptics. Jens Spahn, the young health minister, earned fans on parts of the CDU right with his opposition to Mrs Merkel’s refugee policy in 2015-16, but is viscerally disliked elsewhere. The wildcard is Friedrich Merz, a charismatic former party heavyweight bested by Mrs Merkel in an internecine CDU feud in 2002. Having spent almost a decade away from politics making money in business and law, his surprise candidacy has thrilled the party’s pro-business old guard. After years of torpid centrism under Mrs Merkel, the sharp differences between the candidates portend an intriguing contest.

Over the coming weeks the candidates will make their respective cases to the party faithful at a series of conferences across Germany, before 1,001 delegates choose Mrs Merkel’s successor at a CDU congress in Hamburg on December 7th-8th. Most observers consider Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer and Mr Merz the front-runners; surveys of the party’s supporters (for what they are worth) put the former ahead. Yet the contest, the first genuine CDU leadership election for almost half a century, is utterly unpredictable. Each candidate must find a way to appeal to a party that is eager for renewal but shows no great appetite for political reinvention. They must also consider how their campaign messaging could affect future coalition discussions with other parties, not least the surging Greens.

Once a new party leader is found, attention will turn to Mrs Merkel’s fate. Should Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer prevail, the two women may seek smoothly to engineer her slow ascendancy to the chancellery. But Mrs Merkel will find such cohabitation harder with Mr Merz or Mr Spahn. If the CDU, under either man, forces her to resign as chancellor, the SPD would probably quit the government in turn, leaving the new leader to find fresh coalition partners in parliament, or to call early elections. With German voters in febrile, fractious mood, that could herald a fresh era of uncertainty. Mrs Merkel’s decision has energised a party that had grown listless under her long reign. But its bigger challenges may lie ahead.