Merkel's Succession Plan Falls Apart As Her Protegee Bows Out

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/10/804470763/merkels-succession-plan-falls-apart-as-her-prot-g-e-bows-out


Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's designated successor, says she will quit her role as head of the Germany's strongest party in summer and won't stand for the chancellorship.

February 10, 20201:24 PM ET

MERRIT KENNEDY

Angela Merkel's handpicked successor says that she will not seek Germany's chancellorship, casting into uncertainty the future of the Christian Democratic Union, Germany's most dominant political party.

"With the aim of making the CDU stronger, I have today, after extended reflection, informed the party board and leadership team: I will not seek to become a candidate for the office of German Chancellor," party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, 57, announced Monday, according to Deutsche-Welle.

Merkel later told reporters, "I regard this decision with great respect, though I greatly regret it."

"I can imagine this wasn't an easy decision for her and I thank her for being prepared to stay on to steer the process of choosing a successor," said the longtime chancellor, whose her current term will be her last.

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I don't know about you, but German power vacuums make me nervous AF.

[hedda_foil]

1. Makes me nervous AF too. Worse than bowing out is her reason: party members allying with far right.

She doesn't think she can hold the CDU together.

"AKK," as she is often known, has since had trouble uniting its many disparate factions. Those tensions came to a head last week.

"Last week, in the German state of Thuringia, a local faction of her party joined the far-right Alternative for Deutschland party — known as the AfD — to elect the state's first minister, breaking with the party's aversion to working with the AfD, a party many in Germany label fascist," NPR's Rob Schmitz reported from Berlin.

The breakaway went against Kramp-Karrenbauer's explicit wishes as well as a post-WWII norm that major parties avoid cooperating with the far-right.

"The AfD stands against everything we as the CDU represent," Kramp-Karrenbauer said Monday, according to The Associated Press. "Any convergence with AfD weakens the CDU."

[Dennis Donovan]

2. I guess 75 years is the shelf life for remembering life during WW2 in Germany.