On the face of it, the process is simple. Three contenders vie for the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party, and thus eventually for the chancellery after the next election, and one of them will win it.
Armin Laschet, the state premier of Germany’s most populous federal state, North Rhine-Westphalia, is battling it out with Friedrich Merz, erstwhile Merkel rival from the 2000s who has spent much of the past decade in business, and Norbert Röttgen, the chairman of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee who has the sole distinction (of sorts) of being the only cabinet minister Merkel ever dismissed in her 15 years as chancellor. As the CDU confirmed on Monday, there will be a virtual party congress on January 16 to put the question to the 1,001 delegates. Laschet, Merz, or Röttgen: that is the choice.
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