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Pressured, the conservative leader said on October 7 that he was ready to leave the presidency of his party, the CDU. This announcement comes as the Social Democrats (SPD) have decided to continue their preliminary discussions with the Greens and the Liberals of the FDP on Monday with a view to forming a tripartite governing coalition, which would lead the CDU into opposition.
Already very weakened and pressured since the defeat of his side in the legislative elections of September 26, Armin Laschet has just thrown in the towel: the leader of the German conservatives said he was ready to leave the leadership of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) .
“We will quickly address the issue of the new CDU team, from the president to the presidium to the federal executive committee,” he said in Berlin.
Less than a year after taking the leadership of Angela Merkel’s party, Armin Laschet told the press that he was going to request the holding of a CDU congress, the date and place of which remain to be determined, to decide “the future and the reorganization “at the head of the party. “Since the withdrawal of Angela Merkel from the party presidency we have had an incessant debate” about the direction of the formation, he insisted. According to the newspaper ‘Bild’, this congress could be held during the first half of December in Dresden.
60-year-old and known for his tenacity, Laschet had been chosen by conservatives as a possible successor to Angela Merkel, who had announced that she would not run for a fifth term and would resign once the new coalition was formed.
Armin Laschet has the worst electoral score (24.1%) ever achieved by conservatives in the history of modern Germany. And for good reason, to many observers, Angela Merkel’s dolphin has since appeared on borrowed time.
The coalition of ‘Jamaica’ to which the conservatives aspire and the ‘tricolor’ of the Social Democrats
Hardly elected head of the Christian Democratic Union in January, he had to fight with Markus Söder, head of the CSU, the Bavarian partner of the CDU to be the Conservatives’ candidate for Chancellery.
Author of a failed campaign, despite the involvement of Angela Merkel at the last minute, Armin Laschet continues to insist that a coalition called ‘Jamaica’ is still possible (for the black of the CDU, the yellow of the liberals and for the Green). “The ‘Jamaica’ (coalition) is an opportunity for a real new beginning in our country,” he added.
But the environmentalists and the liberals, respectively third and fourth in the recent vote, are conducting preliminary discussions with the SPD with a view to quickly forming a coalition government and thus avoiding a much feared paralysis across Europe.
At the end of a first round of discussions on Thursday, the formations decided to meet again on Monday for in-depth talks that will continue on Tuesday and then Friday.
However, neither side wanted to say when these discussions could lead to the formation of a coalition called the ‘semaphore’ (red from the SPD, green from the environmentalists, yellow from the liberals).
Significant obstacles remain in the path of an alliance, especially on fiscal issues. But should an agreement be reached on the main lines of a future alliance, the three parties will begin coalition negotiations. However, they all repeated that they wanted to go fast: SPD leader Olaf Scholz, who would become chancellor in the event of an alliance, said on election night that he wanted a government “before Christmas.”
The CDU could go to the opposition after 16 years of mandate
Since the defeat of the CDU on September 26, Armin Laschet’s internal rivals, such as Friedrich Merz or Jens Spahn, who defend a line further to the right, are in a position of succession.
Markus Söder, head of the Bavarian CSU, said that for the conservatives “a period was opening for which we must prepare ourselves”, a probable stage in the opposition after 16 years of the Merkel era.
On Wednesday, on the sidelines of a European Union summit on the Balkans, the chancellor herself had limited conservative hopes, pointing out that her side did not have “the best electoral result” to try to form a coalition.
Thus, the scenario of a move to the opposition for the CDU / CSU is increasingly plausible and the whole ‘Jamaica’ is far from being the preferred option for the Germans: 53% of the population opts for a coalition between the SPD , the Greens and the FDP and 74% believe that the CDU-CSU should withdraw to the opposition, according to a Forsa poll published on October 6.
With AFP
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