by Soeren Kern • December 14, 2018
at 5:00 am
- Annegret
Kramp-Karrenbauer promised to hold a "workshop
discussion" (Werkstattgespräch) on immigration and
security. On all major policy issues, however,
Kramp-Karrenbauer's positions are virtually identical to those
of Merkel.
- "Ms.
Kramp-Karrenbauer is the continuation of Merkel by other means.
She has supported the refugee policy and will not correct
it." — Alexander Gauland, Co-Chair, AfD party.
- "The CDU has not
given convincing answers to the consequences of globalization
and digitization.... The CDU lacks a clear vision of how
prosperity and jobs are not only secured but expanded..." —
The business newspaper Handelsblatt, in a commentary
entitled, "CDU: The Divided People's Party."
Annegret
Kramp-Karrenbauer (left) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel react
after Kramp-Karrenbauer was chosen to succeed Merkel as the next
leader of the Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) on December 7,
2018 in Hamburg. (Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images)
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a 56-year-old career
politician committed to the status quo, has been chosen to succeed
Chancellor Angela Merkel as leader of Germany's Christian Democratic
Union (CDU).
Kramp-Karrenbauer — often referred to as
"Mini-Merkel" or "Merkel 2.0" because many view
her as Merkel's clone — won by just 35 votes (517 to 482) in a
second-round run-off against her main opponent, a conservative named
Friedrich Merz, at a CDU conference in Hamburg on December 7.
Kramp-Karrenbauer's extremely narrow victory (51.7% to 48.2%)
revealed a party split down the middle.
Merz had pledged to pull the CDU back to its
conservative roots, after two decades of leftward drift under
Merkel's leadership resulted in a mass defection of angry CDU voters
to the anti-mass migration party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), now
the third-largest in the German parliament.
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