Chancellor's party in crisis CDU politicians are calling for a restart of their party
From Sunday, the CDU presidium will discuss the party's future course with Chancellor Merz. Franziska Hoppermann, Mario Voigt, Dennis Radtke and Stefan Evers are pushing for more profile – and a focus on everyday problems.
After the series of defeats in the state elections in September, several CDU politicians see a need for action in their party. They call for more attention to be paid to people's everyday problems.
The CDU presidium will go into retreat on Sunday and Monday to discuss possible consequences from the results of the recent elections in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin.
Thuringia's Prime Minister Mario Voigt expects the meeting to be a new start in terms of content. Dennis Radtke, head of the CDU social wing, also calls for the party's Christian-social profile to be asserted again. “We can only create justice and acceptance if we succeed in both: courageous, long-term changes for the future and noticeable, short-term improvements in everyday life,” says CDU General Secretary Franziska Hoppermann. And Berlin's CDU state leader Stefan Evers says: "We have to ask ourselves why fewer and fewer people trust the CDU."
“I feel a deep longing on the part of the base for the CDU to once again clearly formulate what it stands for.”
The CDU must remember what it was elected for in the federal election, said Voigt. “We have to talk about how life can become affordable again for people.” Heating, gas and shopping have become too expensive for many people. That has to change.
One of the CDU's strengths has always been its ability to address people's everyday problems. "I feel a deep longing on the part of the base for the CDU to once again clearly formulate what it stands for." The CDU does not claim to be "the second strongest force in Germany," said Voigt, referring to survey results that also see the AfD clearly ahead nationwide.
"Nobody except the AfD can seriously wish for this government to collapse"
The CDU's reform course must trigger more confidence than fears, said Berlin CDU state leader Stefan Evers to the T-Online portal. This week, Evers also confirmed that Chancellor Merz was largely responsible for the election defeats. The Chancellor lacks empathy and approachability.
Dennis Radtke, head of the CDU social wing, recommended that Merz take the North Rhine-Westphalia state association as a model. “In North Rhine-Westphalia, the CDU is definitely still a people’s party.” A cabinet there without a clear Christian-social profile is unthinkable. The CDU is also anchored much more deeply in the reality of people's lives there. North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst is repeatedly mentioned as a possible successor to Merz.
Warning about the breakup of the coalition
Against the background of the great pressure within the party on Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), there was recently speculation about a possible break in the coalition and a minority government from the Union. Such a government would have to continually seek new majorities in parliament for its projects, which would make governing laborious and uncertain. “Nobody except the AfD can seriously wish for this government to collapse,” Radtke told the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger”. "This flirtation, this flirtation with a minority government, stuns me."
Radtke said it was adventurous to believe that Germany could live up to its responsibility in this way. "This coalition must be able to act, and I don't want to give up faith in it." But some still don't understand what the hour has come. "The political center is currently doing everything it can to accelerate its own erosion."
In Saxony-Anhalt, some people are thinking loudly about leaving the CDU parliamentary group in order to join forces with the AfD. "In Berlin, the SPD and the Greens want to get into political bed with left-wing extremists, anti-Semites and clan sympathizers." The political center is going into the "purgatory" of populists and extremists, says Radtke: "All I can say is: finally wake up!"
