CDU district chairs confront Merz in Berlin over party crisis and poor polls

Anger at the grassroots

Several CDU district chairs have spoken out before the meeting, and their tone is blunt. Désirée Schrade, who leads the party in Frankfurt (Oder), says the warning light is 'dark red' and that members are leaving in noticeable numbers, each departure linked to dissatisfaction with federal politics. She told the press that the party cannot pretend nothing is happening.

“You cannot simply throw a cloak of silence over this.”

Her Dresden counterpart Ingo Flemming argues that residents feel Berlin has not listened, a view that hardens local branches and pushes the debate toward the chancellor himself. Christian Große, who chairs the Potsdam-Mittelmark association with about 610 members, says the mood is poor and that departures there also trace back to federal policy. Große warns that municipalities are buckling under debt and criticises the planned sugar tax and plastic tax, urging Berlin to cut its own staff rather than invent new taxes.

A conference planned months ago

The CDU leadership insists the gathering is not a crisis meeting. Officials around the party leadership say the Kreisvorsitzendenkonferenz was planned for months and that invitations went out in the summer. Tagesspiegel nonetheless expects it could become a reckoning for the chancellor. The last time the party gathered all its district chairs in Berlin was five years ago, when Armin Laschet led the CDU into a lost federal election.

According to the CDU, as cited by stern, 164 of the 325 district chairs are expected, roughly half. Tagesspiegel puts the number of district associations at just under 330 and reports 164 registrations, which it links partly to work commitments, since the meeting runs over two working days. General secretary Franziska Hoppermann opens the conference on Monday afternoon and told stern the party wants to include every voice from its base.

“We want very deliberately to include every voice and every perspective of our base.”

Expected at the conference164

District chairs in total (CDU figure)325

Expected at the conference

164 chairs

District chairs in total (CDU figure)

325 chairs

Data from the article text

What the chairs want from Merz

Before the conference, dpa spoke with district chairs from across the country, and they unanimously demand three things. They want the leadership to listen to the base, to focus less on itself and to take decisions that citizens can feel. Several chairs also cite a loss of authority and a lack of leadership, and some suggest Merz give up the party chairmanship. Schrade has gone further by proposing that the chancellery and the party leadership be separated, arguing that someone with the strength to look after the party is needed. She wants a direct answer from Merz.

“I want to know from him how he sees the future of our party. A solution is needed so that people can be inspired again.”

Merz faces a long session

Merz is due to address the district chairs late on Monday afternoon, after Hoppermann's opening, and the discussion is planned to run for more than one hour. According to stern, one East German district chair expects a tough exchange with him. The backdrop is a run of poor results. In September the CDU finished more than 26 percentage points behind the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, and in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern it dropped out of the state parliament for the first time in its history. Merz had once promised to halve the AfD. The conference continues on Tuesday, 3 November.