When asked whether the CDU and CSU would jointly resolve the personnel issue next year, Dobrindt mentioned the name of the CDU leader on his own in the “Rheinische Post”: “We are ready to jointly take on the responsibility as the federal government. There will be a chancellor candidate, and Friedrich Merz is the clear favorite for that.”
“Who can consolidate the Union’s votes the most? That’s what the CDU must decide.”
The CSU leader and Bavarian Minister President Markus Söder, whom many do not believe has no more ambitions for the candidacy, had recently only granted Merz a favorite role in the event of an early federal election, for example, as a result of an imminent collapse of the traffic light coalition. Otherwise, he told the magazine “Stern”: “The key question for the chancellor candidacy is: Who can consolidate the Union’s votes the most? That’s what the CDU must decide.” Söder is usually ahead in the polls.
The next federal election is scheduled for the autumn of 2025. In 2021, Söder had handed over the Union’s chancellor candidacy to the then party leader Armin Laschet after a bitter power struggle. The North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst has not yet expressed open ambitions for the chancellor candidacy within the Christian Democrats, but has also not denied it. In August, Söder had advocated for the Union’s chancellor candidate to be chosen only after the East elections in 2024. Elections for the state parliaments will be held in Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg in September.
