Armin Laschet criticizes the CDU leadership after the election defeat in Saxony-Anhalt

Former CDU leader Armin Laschet has criticized the lack of support from leading politicians in his party for Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) after the lost state elections in Saxony-Anhalt. The CDU presidium met on election evening “largely without its own prime ministers,” said Laschet on the ZDF program Maybrit Illner. "As Prime Minister, if another federal chairman had been in such a difficult situation, I would have gone."

“Everyone knew that this was a difficult evening,” said the former Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia. "And if some of them were even in Berlin, you could and should have gone there." According to media reports, North Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst, Hesse's Prime Minister Boris Rhein, Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Gordon Schnieder and Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer declined the invitation to spend the election evening with Merz in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus.

“I can’t hear all these sayings anymore”

Laschet welcomed the fact that Merz took personal responsibility the day after the election defeat. At the same time, he doubted whether the right lessons had been learned. When asked about Merz's conclusion that he was now becoming more "emotional" and "empathetic," Laschet said: "Such formulations are terrible. If it's a strategy, you don't talk about it, you do it."

The former CDU candidate for chancellor added: "I really can't hear all these sayings since the election: 'We explained it wrong'; No, we didn't explain it wrong, people consciously decided that way," said Laschet. The CDU needs “a different style of politics.”