A combative old white man who speaks of gays and pedophiles in the same breath, dismisses gender debates as a waste of time and who can't stand Angela Merkel could hardly be more out of step with the zeitgeist.
That hasn't stopped Friedrich Merz from trying to become Germany's next chancellor. The bigger surprise is that he has an outside chance of succeeding.
After Merkel stepped down as party leader in 2018, Merz — whom older Germans remembered as an outspoken fiscal hawk and defender of traditional values — appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the race to succeed her. He denied suggestions he wanted to settle old scores, however, insisting that public service was his only motivation.
Two years on, following Kramp-Karrenbauer's surprise decision to step back from the role and relinquish her aspirations of succeeding Merkel as chancellor, Merz has once again returned. This time, he faces Merkel's new choice to succeed her, Armin Laschet, premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, and Norbert Röttgen, the chairman of the Bundestag's foreign relations committee.
That's in large measure due to Merz, who, channeling his inner Trump, has hinted that the establishment was conspiring to undermine his candidacy.
"It's not going to work," he told his purported enemies in a TV interview last month, referring to himself in the third person. "You're not going to ground Merz down or wear him out. He's going to remain standing."
Merz opposed the CDU leadership's plan to delay the convention, a step the party said it was compelled to take as a result of the pandemic. More than 1,000 delegates are expected to attend the meeting. The laws that govern Germany's political parties make holding the meeting online and voting remotely legally fraught.
The reason for Merz's urgency is that he is leading in the polls, well ahead of his two rivals. In one survey published by Der Spiegel this month, for example, Merz led the field with 26 percent, followed by Röttgen and Laschet with 10.6 percent and 8.1 percent respectively. German Health Minister Jens Spahn, who isn't even officially in the running, placed second with 23 percent. More than 20 percent of respondents said they'd prefer a different candidate.
A Merz victory "would be a disaster," warned one official close to the party leadership.
Merz, who declined requests for comment, has raised eyebrows both in and outside the party for controversial remarks on a range of subjects from homosexuality to COVID-19.
Meet the German Donald Trump
Hardline conservative Friedrich Merz makes a bid for the CDU leadership.
www.politico.eu
