Armin Laschet, the prime minister of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, is the new president of Germany’s leading party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). And so he became the successor of Angela Merkel, who was in that position until the fall of 2018.
In the first round of electronic voting at the virtual party convention, Friedrich Merz, the right-wing candidate, won 385 votes, and Laschet 380. In that round, Norbert Rottgen, who won 224 votes, dropped out, as expected.
In the second round, most of Röttgen’s votes merged, as expected, with Armin Laschet, who took the victory from 521 of them. Merz remained at 466 votes. This is his second defeat in the internal party elections because in December 2019 Armin was defeated by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, whom Merkel wanted as her successor.
Now there is another formality – delegates confirm their electronic votes by mail, so the official results will be announced next Friday.
