Federal Elections 2025 – The Long Path of Friedrich Merz

Friedrich Merz (68) needed three attempts to become CDU party leader. Now, after the rejection of North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst, who is almost twenty years younger than him, and CSU boss Markus Söder, Friedrich Merz can also try his luck as a candidate for the Union’s chancellorship in the 2025 federal elections. The final decision on the chancellor issue will be made by the leadership bodies of the CDU and CSU next Monday. However, it can be assumed that they will approve Merz’s appointment with a large majority.

For Merz, it is the temporary destination of a long journey. He could become the next CDU chancellor, after Angela Merkel – who pushed him out of the CDU front row twenty years ago. In 2002, Merz was defeated by Angela Merkel in the election for the leadership of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag. Although he initially remained a member of the Bundestag, he withdrew after Merkel’s election as chancellor in 2005 and left the Bundestag in 2009 to work again as a lawyer and consultant. But the ‘driven Merz’ was never far from politics. He had a close friendship with CDU veteran Wolfgang Schäuble. Merz, however, shied away from open confrontation with Merkel. It was only when she announced her withdrawal that he ventured out of the shadows again.

Merz senses his chance
In 2018, after the election debacle of the CDU in Hesse and the CSU in Bavaria, the Chancellor announced her slow retreat. First of all, she no longer wants to run as party leader and also no longer wants to run for chancellor in 2021. Merz, fueled by right-wing conservative forces in the party that disagreed with Merkel’s migration policy, announced a comeback – and narrowly lost at the party conference in Hamburg to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the future defense minister who was favored by Merkel. Merz left the party conference prematurely. Kramp-Karrenbauer could not prevent the rapid decline of the CDU and announced her withdrawal in 2020. Merz stepped back onto the mat – and lost again. This time to Armin Laschet. The Union was deeply divided and divided, and there were always crossfires from Bavaria from CSU boss Markus Söder.

In the 2021 federal elections, they ended up in an electoral debacle, losing almost nine percent and finishing only in second place behind the SPD. This time it was his big moment. “Only when Merkel was no longer there did a CDU party conference dare to elect with more than 94 percent the man who apparently more Christian Democrats had missed for sixteen years than appeared to the outside world during Merkel’s years as chancellor,” the newspaper analyses. “Frankfurter Allgemeine.” Krant”.

Now Merz is a candidate for chancellor. And he can only fail because of himself. The magazine ‘Politico’ called Merz the ‘German Trump’ in 2020. He made controversial remarks about the fight against the pandemic, equated homosexuals with pedophiles and does not believe in equal rights for women. Merz is prone to emotional outbursts and is easily provoked.

At the moment, this is being ignored within the party. Because the CDU is a party of power that comes together as soon as it experiences success. The surveys, combined with the disastrous picture of the traffic light coalition consisting of the SPD, FDP and the Greens, are already causing champagne corks to pop in the Konrad Adenauer House and ministerial posts to be handed out. It is unclear what will happen when this trend ends. And in the election campaign, the emotional Merz is coming to the fore again.