The 32^nd federal party convention of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will be held in East Germany’s city of Leipzig this upcoming Friday and Saturday (22-23 November). During this convention, a new leader will not be elected but the future projections of the party will be addressed and determined. Given the fact that the Social Democrats (SPD), the junior partner of the current grand coalition government since March 2018, are also heading into the final phase of their leadership search at the end of this month, the CDU’s party convention might be of general relevance and importance too.

In order to clarify the party’s future plans and goals during the convention, CDU party chairperson and the federal minister of defence Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer called on her opponents to openly state their criticisms thus paving the way for possible controversial debates during the convention. It is a move that Kramp-Karrenbauer most likely hopes will present her as a strong leader who is able to cope with harsh criticism from her party’s ranks.

Kramp-Karrenbauer’s more recent decisions have been the subject of criticism by other party members, such as her surprising call for an internationally controlled safe zone in Northern Syria. Party members have also called for a new negotiation of the current coalition with the Social Democrats. However, in a recently published interview, Kramp-Karrenbauer once again stated that there were no concerns about the existing coalition agreement with the CSU and SPD and thus rejected new negotiations on it.

Furthermore, the youth organization of the party called for a new process to determine the party’s future chancellor candidate which would involve the participation of all CDU members. This recommendation was interpreted as a challenge against AKK personally. But the youth organization is not the only group seeking a new process, five other CDU associations on the state and local levels are also in agreement. However, it is expected that these recommendations will be rejected at the convention, despite the youth organization’s suggestions being taken into serious consideration by the party members.

Kramp-Karrenbauer on the other hand, has constantly tried to portray a rather strong and self-confident image of herself while calling her party’s members to criticize and even discredit the CDU’s policies, and she does this by pointing to the positive achievements of the CDU’s coalition since 2005. However, more recently Kramp-Karrenbauer has become self-critical of her one year performance as chairperson and the party’s decreasing vote shares according to polls.

In addition to several criticisms against Kramp-Karrenbauer, it seems that she still trying to hold a stable position which her intra-party opponents –at least at the moment– do not dare to challenge openly. However, recent polls indicate that for CDU members Kramp-Karrenbauer is not the most popular figure as the next chancellor candidate, but Friedrich Merz. For the moment, however, Merz is not openly challenging Kramp-Karrenbauer, who he lost the leadership race to last December. During that leadership contest, Kramp-Karrenbauer received 517 of the 999 all valid votes while Merz only received 482 votes. Whether a rather different result might occur today is an interesting question which has not been not openly addressed. This is actually related to Merz’ most likely secure strategy.

Merz currently denies any kind of “showdown” at the convention against the CDU chairperson and also strengthened his official stance supporting her. However, even though Merz rejects any kind of a debate on a new chairperson of the CDU, he has said that he will continue his critical statements concerning specific issues.

The CDU currently elects the chancellor candidate within narrow party committees where Merz would have less chances to persuade the party’s delegates. But if all CDU members would be able to determine the next chancellor candidate then Merz would have more chances compared with Kramp-Karrenbauer. Although Merz officially does not favour such an option, at least for the moment, his supporters have tried to push for this method. Therefore, it seems that Merz will eventually welcome some new processes for the election of the party’s future chancellor candidate.

On this upcoming Friday and Saturday, the CDU is unlikely to challenge its current chairperson. The party’s leading figures will most likely address other topics, among them Turkey’s EU process, which will be also problematized once again, and most likely in a rather unfortunate way due to Turkey’s recent legitimate operation in Northern Syria. But the leadership question of the CDU will most likely continue to be on the party’s table at least until the next parliamentary elections in 2021. Until then, it seems a very clever move by Merz not to risk any chances to challenge the current chairperson Kramp-Karrenbauer who he would most likely lose against, a loss that might result in the end of his political career. Due to this, Merz prefers to officially support Kramp-Karrenbauer while simultaneously continuing to appear as an alternative in any future leadership crisis, something which might occur in the next months.

While Merz is most likely aiming to solidify his own position as a long-lasting alternative, Kramp-Karrenbauer must currently persuade her party members of her future performance. In addition, the SPD’s ongoing leadership search and their final decision in December whether to continue the coalition with the CDU is also an important topic that concerns the entire coalition.

Last Monday, Germany’s Defense Minister and Chairperson of the Christian Democrats (CDU), Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK), surprisingly raised a proposal for an internationally controlled safe zone in northern Syria. AKK who is currently Chancellor Merkel’s preferred successor, stated that Germany “cannot just stand by and watch and not do anything” about Syria, while outlining her safe zone suggestion, one that which would be internationally controlled and involve Turkey and Russia.

Following her statements, the question arose as to whether she had shared this idea with her coalition partners, and above all, with the actual office responsible for foreign issues, namely, Germany’s Federal Foreign Office and its Social Democrat (SPD) foreign minister, Heiko Maas.

However, it became clear that neither the SPD nor the junior coalition partner, the Christian Social Union (CSU) and its leader Markus Söder, were informed about AKK’s ambitious proposal. Consequently, a dispute occurred behind closed doors between the coalition partners, and the proposal as well as the possible deployment of German troops to northern Syria was severely contested.

The foreign minister’s initial comments also revealed the uncomfortable mood among the coalition members. Maas stated publicly that there were some unanswered questions and that Germany had received skepticism from its EU allies. He added that there was no current discussion among partners to create such an international safe zone, and criticized the time and style in which the proposal was made.

Despite similar irritation and silent criticism by other SPD members, it seems that CDU officials instead supported the defense minister in a quasi-obligatory way, while opposition parties criticized AKK’s proposal. For instance, the Left Party called the proposal “ridiculous”, while the Greens stated that the proposal raised more questions than answers. Interestingly, the former SPD chairman and foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, welcomed AKK’s proposal on its content.

Neither the SPD nor the junior coalition partner, the Christian Social Union (CSU) were informed about AKK’s ambitious proposal.

In the following days, though, AKK accused Turkey of annexing parts of northern Syria which consequently caused a backlash even from the German public. Thus, some opposition members harshly criticized the defense minister for spreading “false information” while others described her as “incompetent on such issues”. AKK’s usage of the term “annexation” showed her lack of knowledge regarding military issues. It is generally accepted that there is no intention of a permanent integration of northern Syria into Turkey, which makes AKK’s assertion even more unacceptable.

One day following her public proposal, AKK did not receive the hoped for support from other NATO defense ministers. Furthermore, this recent weekend, Foreign Minister Maas made a surprise visit to Ankara, where he indirectly criticized his colleague’s safe zone proposal. When he was asked about the unclear plan, Maas answered “we were told it was not realistic. Therefore, we prioritized issues that are more important for us at the moment.”

Given the current circumstances; how should we comment on these recent events? It is quite interesting to observe that AKK is preferring to use language which stresses that the situation in Syria is massively compromising the security interests of Germany and Europe. She also criticized both actors for acting too much like “onlookers” and argued that only “a political initiative from Germany for a European advance through NATO makes sense.” But what may be AKK’s main purpose and interest in proposing such an unrealistic step, one which even the German Foreign Minister had to dismiss during his recent visit in Ankara?

Actually, it is no doubt a risky step that aimed to increase her political importance and public popularity, which has been gradually decreasing over the past couple of months. In addition, the recent blow in the Thuringia state elections has also been related to AKK’s performance as the CDU chairperson.

Therefore, as the potential future German chancellor, AKK most likely made a move to achieve a success story on an international platform. This, however, did not receive that much support and even deteriorated the intra-coalition relations, as Maas had stressed during his short-planned visit to Ankara, in which Maas made it clear that Germany’s foreign policy was not determined by the CDU leader and defense minister, but by his ministry. However, other CDU politicians and even opposition figures preferred to criticize Maas’ undiplomatic words that targeted (and even offended) their cabinet colleague.

At the end of the day, the move by the CDU leader will most likely not contribute positively towards her ambitions of becoming Germany’s next chancellor in 2021. Although her previous rival for chancellor, Friedrich Merz is not currently attacking her personally, he has focused attention instead on Chancellor Merkel as the main person responsible of the electoral defeat in Thuringia and other failings of the party. Importantly, Merz recently stressed that the current grand coalition could not continue until 2021.

While these were not direct criticisms of AKK, it can be surmised that such statements will ultimately affect the position of AKK herself, and the future of the coalition partnership as a whole. One which has suffered heavily due to the recent unplanned safe zone move by AKK and the undiplomatic reactions by the foreign minister abroad.

Last week, Germany’s main conservative party, the Christian Democrats (CDU), surprisingly achieved some important success in certain areas of political significance. On the one hand, former defense minister and a close ally of Angela Merkel, Ursula von der Leyen (CDU), was elected as the new European Commission President. On the other hand, the CDU’s chairperson and another close ally of Merkel, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK), was appointed as the new defense minister in Merkel’s current coalition government, succeeding von der Leyen.

Merkel has made some tactical moves. Although these moves were not aggressive in nature, they do eventually promise success. Merkel is ambitiously preparing the CDU for the post-2021 era, when she will ultimately quit active politics, as she had already declared at the beginning of this year. Besides her moves of domestic political significance, Merkel also supported a very well-known name on the EU platform- that is to say, von der Leyen- in order to become the European Commission President for the next five years. A real success.

Of course, there has been heavy criticism with regard to both Ursula von der Leyen- even from the coalition partner, the Social Democrats- and also regarding AKK as the country’s new defense minister. The liberal FDP criticized AKK on the basis that she had recently declared she will not join Merkel’s cabinet and only focus on her task as party chairperson. However, according to FDP’s defense expert, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, AKK undermined her credibility by doing the exact opposite. Some voices also casted doubt on AKK’s expertise and experience as a minister of defense and in the specific field in general, while some academics and military officers addressed the issue with a rather critical perspective.

These critical voices may be taken into consideration while Germany’s military is also being criticized domestically and abroad for its lack of capacity, which became public during the last years under Ursula von der Leyen.

The main controversial statement however came from the far-right and populist AfD. The AfD’s parliamentary group leader in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz), Uwe Junge, who was a former officer in the German military until he quit his job in 2016 for a career in politics stated, “If this (AKK) is the best personality of our old parties with regard to one of the most important offices of our #nation, this says a lot about the state of our country! When will it come finally to the uprising of the #generals?” (“Wenn das die beste Personalie der alten Parteien für eines der wichtigsten Ämter unserer #Nation ist, sagt das viel über den Zustand unseres Landes aus! Wann kommt endlich der Aufstand der #Generale?”)

As expected, Junge’s statements received harsh criticism from some circles that perceived it as a call for a military coup. According to Junge, though, the German word “Aufstand” cannot be counted as a call for a coup against the defense minister. Nevertheless, one has to clarify some basic points before elaborating such difficult statements, which is not something that occurs often in German politics – at least since 1945.

Interestingly, last week, I addressed in this column whether another military coup could occur in Turkey while analyzing the recently July 15, 2016, coup attempt. However, it seems that a potential putschist mentality or mentalities that ignore the democratic civilian control of the military may occur anywhere in the world, no matter what degree of democratization the country has achieved.

Regarding Junge’s statement one should also mention that he was a military officer (lieutenant colonel) of the so called PsyOps (psychological operations/Zentrum Operative Kommunikation der Bundeswehr).

How can one elaborate on these –not entirely representative of the AfD- but very controversial statements with regard to civil-military relations, which are believed to be on a very democratic standard in Germany? It would be, no doubt, a mistake to take a single statement of an AfD member and accuse it of being representative of the whole party, even if the party is located on the far-right. However, the continuation of the party’s (in general) controversial, racist and deliberately manipulative statements with double-meanings contributes to the image of how a potential AfD government in the future could look like. This and several other controversial statements and even scandals illustrate what kind of democracy understanding is currently present among AfD members and what it might evolve into in the future.

It is not legitimate to call any members of the military for an uprising or rebellion against the country’s legitimately appointed defense minister. If this basic point is not accepted by any politician, then something is definitely wrong. By this, I do not mean any concrete factual statements, legal recommendations or reports by army members about certain fields that concentrate on their expertise and where of course a minister’s expertise may lack. The call for an uprising (Aufstand) is, however, an expression with an absolutely extreme controversial content. Whether the Chancellor’s decision is wrong or right, this does not give current or former military personnel the right to react in this way against the democratically elected and legitimate Chancellor’s mandate.

Nevertheless, the statements made by alleged “moderate” AfD members could be taken as a notice as to how a potential future government constellation with the AfD will end.

In the past week, German political circles have been discussing whether a potential dispute will erupt between Angela Merkel and her party’s (CDU) chairperson, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK). While some media outlets argue that AKK has recently made a deal with the former chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group (2000-2002), Friedrich Merz, it is not clear whether such an alleged step will cause other complexities. According to the news, AKK promised Merz a federal ministry as soon as she becomes Germany’s next Chancellor. However, it seems that current Chancellor Angela Merkel and the conditions of the current German parliament will not enable such possibilities prior to the 2021 elections.

The discussion become public subsequent to a piece published in Der Spiegel, according to which AKK and Merz made a deal for the time period after Merkel. Merz is a former conservative CDU politician, who challenged both Merkel and AKK in the race to leadership. However, lost the race against both. He quit politics in 2009 and changed to rather lucrative sectors such as consultancy and began lobbying for different companies. When in late 2018 it became clear that Merkel would leave as chair, Merz announced his ambitions to comeback, although he lost against the party’s former secretary-general and Merkel’s close ally, AKK.

But now there are interesting issues being discussed in the media and political circles as to whether AKK will push Merkel in order to become Chancellor at an early date, or whether AKK will continue to work closely with Merkel until 2021, respect her as the country’s Chancellor together with all her preferences – to which Merz definitely does not belong.

By this, it has to be stressed that there is no option that Merz might become a minister under the ongoing leadership of Merkel, while Merz excludes this option as well. Merz is making efforts to reinforce his dialogue with the country’s potential and future Chancellor, AKK. But one has to also keep in mind that Merz does not only want to become a minister (at the best the federal economy minister). He is also closely following both the EU elections and federal elections, which will determine the German federal government’s near future – consisting of a fragile coalition between the CDU, CSU, and SPD.

We will see how German politics and leadership struggles will be shaped in the upcoming months, in particular following the EU Parliament elections in May.

Although the coalition has been maintained for 15 months now and is likely to continue until the next federal elections in 2021, there are certain dynamics of potential importance. One of the most stressed points is the worsening economic conditions and the forecasts for a slowdown in the short term, which is most likely to begin next year. The other point that may trigger heavy discussions within all three coalition parties is the upcoming elections in the federal states of Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia. Therefore, the potential fields of dispute and the results of the CDU might have either a positive or negative effect on the remaining two years left of the Merkel tenure.

Finally, one has to also keep in mind that the current two major parties in Germany continue to lose votes according to the regularly conducted election polls. While the CDU/CSU parties still have difficulties in persuading their voters not to turn to the far-right AfD, the Social Democrats (SPD) are also facing similar difficulties in losing their voter base to the Green Party. In this sense, it is an interesting phenomenon that the co-leader of the Green Party, Robert Habeck, has become one of Germany’s most popular politicians. In addition to the Green Party becoming Germany’s second biggest party, thus overtaking the SPD, scenarios regarding a future CDU/CSU/Greens coalition is also on the table. This will lead to political deadlock due to the serious disagreements among the parties.

We will see how German politics and leadership struggles will be shaped in the upcoming months, in particular following the EU Parliament elections in May.

Even though the annual convention of the CDU’s youth wing held on 6 October got public attention due to some of the critical statements made against Chancellor Merkel’s leadership, one interesting stance by the CDU’s General Secretary Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who is known as one of Merkel’s closest allies, has been partly disregarded in particular by the Turkish public.

The annual convention was elaborated as a first stage right before the CDU’s party congress in December, during which Merkel is hoping to be re-elected as the party’s chairperson. Despite several other potential and younger candidates, it seems quite obvious that Merkel is going to win the election in December. However, following the current period of her fourth government in three years, another CSU personality will most likely take over the party leadership.

It’s striking that potential candidates aim to push towards a rather nationalist bias by insistently making use of anti-Turkish discourse. This happened once again during the recent annual convention, as Mrs. Kramp-Karrenbauer addressed Turkey-Germany relations in the context of dual-citizenship for Turkish people living in Germany.

During her speech at the annual convention, Kramp-Karrenbauer criticized Turkey’s President Erdogan by stating, “If President Erdogan continues to push Turks into a loyalty struggle, the right to have dual-citizenship has to be reconsidered again. If Erdogan wants to divide the Turkish community in Germany, this topic will be on the table, in particular for Turks with a dual-citizenship.”

No doubt, the CDU’s General Secretary Kramp-Karrenbauer is trying to make us of anti-Turkish mood by falsely accusing the Turkish president in order to increase her profile in the eyes of the younger and more nationalist voters. One should remember that despite the CDU’s historical disapproval of the right for dual-citizenship, Chancellor Merkel was – together with and due to the pressure by the coalition partner SPD – able to pass an amendment to the citizenship law in 2014, which finally allowed for young and newborn Turks to hold both Turkish and German citizenship.

Other EU citizens already have this right. However, till this date, some CDU members have continued to problematize this step, in a rather blackmailing manner. Such politicians have implied, or directly threatened, Turks in cancelling this right, particularly in cases when either President Erdogan receives support from Turks in Germany, or if the CDU’s votes decrease due to domestic problems.

In such conditions, politicians do not hesitate to make use of a nationalist discourse as in the most recent case of Kramp-Karrenbauer. However, on the other hand, no concrete steps are taken or no sincere statements are made by CDU politicians when Turks or Muslims in Germany face difficulties in their daily lives, caused especially by far-right and anti-Islam circles.

It’s very likely that people would rather welcome statements by Germany’s conservatives who are not playing in the hands of far-right voters and dividing society by themselves. In recent years, the bias of conservatives in Germany has reached a peak of absurdity.

Although these kinds of topics have nothing to do with Germany’s current problems, politicians with certain future career goals regularly and insistently address similar populist and Turkey related topics. This is a fundamental problem for major conservative parties and circles.

My estimation is that Kramp-Karrenbauer will be the CDU’s next chairperson, unless more controversial and even more nationalist personalities such as Jens Spahn are able to mobilize more supporters. In this context, Kramp-Karrenbauer was appointed by Merkel as the party’s new General Secretary in February and quit her job in the German state of Saarland.

The reason for this was the fact that federal CDU members became increasingly critical against Merkel’s policies and her weakness to build a new federal government. Consequently, in order to silence criticism, Merkel brought a close ally into the federal stage who is also a rightist and more conservatively oriented in societal topics. Kramp-Karrenbauer appeared in the media in 2017 when she banned Turkish politicians from holding election campaigns in Saarland – despite the fact that no politician from Turkey had actually planned to campaign in Saarland.

One notices a similar pattern and a symbolic act of which certain politicians regularly make use of in order to achieve some populist goals within a party. But these kinds of abnormalities cause an unrest among the Turkish community, encourage far-right circles and contribute in a negative way to Germany’s image. One has to consider these ambivalent and populist maneuvers in depth and decide who is dividing German population.