Markus Söder, prime minister of Bavaria, has declared his intention to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor, in a move that sets the stage for a showdown with Armin Laschet, the CDU leader who has also laid claim to the top job.
Söder’s move on Sunday throws the post-Merkel succession into disarray. Normally the leader of the Christian Democratic Union has an automatic claim to run as the joint chancellor candidate of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the smaller CSU.
But Laschet’s poor approval rating and missteps during the coronavirus pandemic have encouraged Söder, who is leader of the CSU as well as Bavarian prime minister, to lay claim to the candidacy himself.
The CDU more generally has experienced a sharp slump in the polls, partly because of public frustration at the slow pace of Covid-19 vaccinations and anger at revelations that a number of CDU and CSU MPs received large commissions on deals to procure face masks.
The slide in the polls just five-and-a-half months before elections to the Bundestag has triggered panic among many CDU MPs and prompted some of them to look to Söder as the party’s potential saviour.
A hard-charging populist with a reputation as a political shape-shifter, Söder has enjoyed strong approval ratings throughout the pandemic, which revealed him as a decisive crisis-manager.
He threw his hat in the ring at a meeting of the leadership of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group on Sunday, which was also attended by Merkel and Laschet.
“He said he would run as the CDU/CSU candidate for chancellor if the CDU wants him to,” said a senior CDU MP who attended the meeting.
Söder said that if the CDU did not want him to run, we would continue to work together, with no ill-will, German media quoted him as saying. He insisted any decision should be consensual, involving himself and Laschet, the CDU and CSU and their joint parliamentary group.
Laschet declared his intention to run at the same meeting, saying he and Söder would decide among themselves who of the two should be the candidate. Traditionally that has been decided by the leaders of the two parties.