Outside it is freezing cold and the night has been harsh. But within the industrial warehouse in the outskirts of Halle, hundreds of members of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) applaud heated each time one of the three candidates to succeed chancellor Angela Merkel speaks of immigration. And clap their hands more and more and more, because there is little talk of anything else during the three hours of the encounter with the militants in this city in eastern Germany.
In the hallway, some politicians ponder aloud. As Michael Kretschmer, minister-president of the State of Saxony, that it considers that the candidates do well in addressing what they are concerned about “the people”. “The issue of immigration moves people a lot. We can not leave it in the tray to the populists, we can’t let that spread their false messages”, explains to this newspaper, the politician in whose State is Chemnitz, the city in which it recently occurred violent clashes far-right.
Not everybody in her party are in agreement and the debate internal charge intensity. The three applicants to replace the chancellor at the front of the conservative party touring these days-country to get to know and take the pulse of his own before the crucial congress of the 7th of December in Hamburg, which will elect the successor of Merkel after 18 years at the head of the formation.
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Two of the candidates —Friedrich Merz and Jens Spahn— represent the break with the past merkeliano. The third, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, alias AKK and protected from Merkel, represents to some extent a continuity and therefore some stability with a view to the permanence of the chancellor at the head of the Government until the end of his fourth term, in 2021. Surveys speak of a certain preference for AKK among the voters of the CDU, but at this point, the result is very open. Especially, because one thing is what you think the average voter of the CDU and the other what he finally go to vote the 1,001 delegates in Hamburg. The appointment promises suspense.
Merz came to Halle a little blanching. The previous day had suggested possible amendments in the Constitution in the article of the right of asylum and rained down criticism. Hours before leaving the scene tried to fix it via Twitter, medium retracting, but already in flour and jaleado by the attendees became embroiled in alleged legal technicalities with which he hinted that to curb the influx of refugees was possible with the law in hand and coordinating with the rest of Europe. After, he threw a dart poisoned his enemy historical, Merkel: “A constitutional State such as Germany should never lose control of who enters and who exits,” he said in allusion to the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees in 2015.
Infinite questions
The clash of Merz, 62 years of age, with the chancellor comes from far away. In 2002, he was ousted as leader of the Parliament, which ended up leaving seven years later to devote himself to the business. Is the candidate of the revenge, whose triumph would open up endless questions. Because the cohabitation between Merz as chairman of the CDU with Merkel in front of the Executive guess nettlesome and may even be unfeasible. “Merz is a box of surprises. It takes ten years dedicated to the business. It is very emotional, shrewd, and the people of his environment says he can be gruff and even angry. Everybody knows that you can’t take more than a minute in the same room Güvenilir Bahis Siteleri as Merkel”, explains Michael Bröcker, author of a biography of Jens Spahn, another of the applicants.
Spahn is also a well-known opponent of the chancellor. 38 year-old, is the youngest of the three and features of game with a lot less chance than their rivals. The current minister of Health is also the most conservative of the candidates. It is repeated that has a determination of iron and an ambition to flower of skin. In Halle focused on your star theme, the Covenant of the United Nations for migration, whose opposition led Alternative for Germany (AfD), and that, despite the fact that Germany has already signed after 18 months of multilateral negotiations, the young candidate poses that are discuss within the party.
Kramp-Karrenbauer defends the migratory agreement, but bet for speeding up the deportations of claimants, whose asylum has been rejected. Halle said, “who is living here as a refugee and commits a crime will have to leave the country and not re-tread,” said the more centrist of the three causing the enthusiasm of the public that applauded like mad when the candidates sharpened their rhetoric antinmigración.
Can you AKK do not talk or move as well as their peers, but the last survey we gave last Friday a 38% of the support of the supporters of the CDU as opposed to 29% of Merz and 6% of Spahn. “The delegates will elect the leader who is able to achieve a majority tomorrow, and that’s Kramp-Karrenbauer. Someone that is positioned in the center and that is capable of integrating all streams”, you think Bröcker. 56-year-old, AKK is a policy of the provinces, which has demonstrated its capacity to win elections in his small State of Saarland, in the southwest of the country. Like Merkel, its style is a little pretentious, and is an experienced laborer a consensus. His closeness to the chancellor is at the same time an asset and a liability in a party that after nearly two decades monocordes crave new voices and fresh air.
Daniel Günther, belonging to the wing, more centrist, defends the integrative capacity of the applicant. Young star of German politics, Günther warns of the danger of emulating the populist —strategy that, for example, in Bavaria it has not given result— and gives as a reference the State in which he governs, Schleswig Holstein, where the polls give a 7% of the votes at AfD. “Not only do we talk about refugees, but of the real problems of the people. You have to concentrate on what we are strongest, in the solution of the problems”, he argues in a meeting with foreign correspondents.
still ahead four conferences, which will shape the tone of a critical debate for a party reference in Europe and are looking for their new accommodation, in times of turbulent fragmentation policies.
Reference to the centre-right of Europe
The journey undertaken by the CDU of germany to define its future has become an x-ray of the political dilemma that chases the centre-right across Europe: how to deal with the extreme right and especially in his speech obsessive and always on the negative with immigration. But it also has nuances of its own.
The election of the head of the CDU will mark the new direction of a party in mutation in search of its new identity. The training has organized eight regional conferences in eight different cities where they are acting candidates.
And there, each city is a world. The Halle is a universe derechizado, in which the extreme right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) gained almost 20% of the votes of the State at the general last year. For this reason, it was to some extent logical that the majority of the questions of the hundreds of militants who came to visit the applicants have to do with immigration, the monotema of the extremists.
Whoever wins the party’s congress, you will have many ballots to become the next German chancellor and champion of the new political chapter that opens in Germany
the end of the era Merkel. Hence the candidates have marked a distance with the legacy of the chancellor, especially with the so-called refugee crisis in 2015, which has resulted in the arrival of close to a million and a half refugees to Germany since then.
