Germany: Merkel's party to choose new leader by late January
ABC News
Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party is turning to a ballot of its entire membership to choose a new leader after crashing to defeat and its worst-ever national election result in September
BERLIN -- Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right party is turning to a ballot of its entire membership to choose a new leader after crashing to defeat and its worst-ever national election result in September. It expects to have a new leader by late January.
It will be the first time that the Christian Democratic Union has had its roughly 400,000-strong membership vote on who leads the party. Outgoing leader Armin Laschet said Tuesday that it is “a good way to achieve a new beginning for the CDU.”
Laschet, who was elected to lead the CDU only in January, is stepping aside after a much-criticized election campaign marred by infighting.
The two-party Union bloc, in which the CDU is by far the bigger party, finished behind the center-left Social Democrats with only 24.1% of the vote. The Social Democrats are negotiating with two smaller parties to form a coalition government, which they hope will take office in early December — sending the Union into opposition.
