Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party will choose its new leader at an online conference in January 2021. Merkel, who has been in power since 2005, will step down after finishing her fourth term.

The race for the CDU leadership

Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party will choose a new leader in a digital congress set to take place over January 15-16. The CDU explained that the format of the congress was chosen “in close coordination” with Friedrich Merz, Norbert Rottgen and Armin Laschet, the three men competing for the position.

The party’s new leader will be chosen by 1.001 CDU delegates on the second day of the congress. The new leader will be confirmed by postal ballots, which will not feature the names of the two unsuccessful candidates.

Germany’s next chancellor?

Back in 2018, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was announced as the new leader of the CDU, however, her popularity fell massively since becoming leader and, after the Thuringian election scandal earlier this year, she announced she would resign and not put herself forward for candidacy.

The election for a new leader was originally supposed to take place this summer, however, due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was postponed twice. The crisis has also made it hard for the three candidates to create any real momentum in their leadership campaigns although surveys show that the corporate lawyer Friedrich Merz is the favoured choice among the CDU voters.

A recent survey suggests that a lot of Germans would prefer to see the Bavarian Minister-President, Markus Söder (CSU), as the next chancellor, with his response to the pandemic garnering him nationwide praise. However, Söder has repeatedly distanced himself from the position, insisting that his place “is in Bavaria.”