BERLIN — At least two candidates plan to challenge Angela Merkel for the leadership of her party at the Christian Democratic Union’s December conference in Hamburg.
Andreas Ritzenhoff, a businessman from the region of Hesse, told the Funke media group in an interview published late Wednesday that he wants to unseat the chancellor, who has led the party for 18 years, because it is time for renewal.
“It seems urgently necessary to me for the CDU to formulate new political goals that will lead to a noticeable change of direction,” said Ritzenhoff, who owns an aluminium manufacturing company and joined the CDU earlier this year.
In September, 26-year-old law student Jan-Philipp Knoop from Berlin announced he plans to run for the CDU leadership in a Facebook post.
While neither is considered to be a serious contender for the job, the two challengers are seen as a sign of growing discontent in some quarters of Merkel’s conservatives and a broader desire to begin discussing what comes next.
The chancellor suffered an embarrassing loss in parliament last month, when her center-right bloc rejected her hand-picked choice to lead its parliamentary group, Volker Kauder, and instead voted for challenger Ralph Brinkhaus. The move was widely seen as a party rebellion and a sign of Merkel’s dwindling authority.
Kauder’s loss came on the heels of an internal dispute over the dismissal of Germany’s domestic spy chief, as well as a conflict between Merkel and her interior minister over migration policies.
Merkel was reelected at the CDU party conference in December 2016 with 89.5 percent of the vote.