‘The die is cast,’ said Markus Söder in a press conference yesterday as he stepped back to allow his rival Armin Laschet to run as the chancellor candidate for the conservatives in Germany’s upcoming election. This ominous phrase was carefully chosen by a man who thought a disastrously wrong decision had been made by the CDU elite.
Söder was by far the most popular chancellor candidate, and had a 20 point lead over his conservative competitor in the polls. Söder, the minister-president of Bavaria, won his own state and the wider German public over with his straight-talking and decisive action during the pandemic. With the charismatic Bavarian at the helm, Merkel’s CDU/CSU would have stood a good chance of not only retaining power, but winning the election comfortably.
Meanwhile the CDU/CSU’s chosen candidate, Laschet, is as unpopular as ever. One survey, taken shortly after his candidacy had been confirmed, put the German Greens seven points ahead of his party.
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