Germany’s centre-right opposition leader Friedrich Merz has secured party backing to challenge Olaf Scholz for the chancellery in next September’s scheduled federal election.
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian CSU ally agreed on Tuesday to back Mr Merz, setting aside regional rivalries and ending months of political speculation.
“We want to take over the leadership of this country… with policies that take Germany forward [to] get the country functioning again”, said Mr Merz, calling his party “in some parts of the country the last remaining big-tent party of the democratic centre”.
The announcement opens the way for an official nomination, seen as a formality, four years after the 68 year old returned to politics from a lucrative investment banking position.
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The news puts a likely end to the federal political ambitions of Markus Söder, Bavaria’s state premier and CSU leader, who also expressed interest in running for the chancellery.
On Tuesday, Mr Söder said he was “fine” with the decision to back Mr Merz and that he would “support him unequivocally”.
Rivalry between the CDU and the Munich-based CSU is seen as one reason why the centre-right alliance lost the chancellery in 2021 after four terms under Angela Merkel.
Mr Merz, a long-time rival of Angela Merkel, is an economic liberal who has shifted his CDU/CSU alliance further to the right. Since becoming leader in 2022, party support has surged to 34 per cent – 10 points above its disastrous 2021 election result.
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Polls show the party is now more popular than the three parties in Berlin’s federal coalition parties taken together – and 20 points ahead of Mr Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD).
The SPD and its two coalition allies suffered disastrous state elections earlier this month, with another defeat likely on Sunday in Brandenburg.
Those regional votes have been dominated by growing public unease over irregular migration and related violence.
The CDU and Mr Merz have shifted towards a harder line on migration and asylum, forcing the Scholz coalition to commit to border checks and expedited expulsions of failed asylum seekers.
On Tuesday, Mr Söder insisted the CDU’s “fundamental realignment” on migration had “healed the wound” between the party and his own Bavarian allies.
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As CDU leader, Mr Merz saw it as a “great responsibility” to defend Germany’s political centre amid the heated immigration debate.
However, he forecast that the 2025 election would be won or lost on who was considered more competent to reverse what he called Germany’s “precarious” economic situation.
After ending last year with minus growth, official Bundesbank data suggests Germany’s economy will grow by 0.3 per cent this year and 1.1 per cent next.
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