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Armin Laschet elected as leader of Merkel's CDU party in Germany

16 January 2021
Dan Ackermann

Armin Laschet, the centrist governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, was elected on Saturday as the new leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), defeating the more conservative Friedrich Merz by a 521-466 margin.

Why it matters: Laschet is now the most likely successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel as the standard bearer of the German center-right heading into September's elections. With Merkel preparing to step down after 16 years in power, Laschet is seen as a continuity candidate.

  • The union of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), will select its nominee to become chancellor in the spring, with Laschet now positioned as the front-runner.
  • After the contest, Laschet said that he wanted to ensure that the next German chancellor would be from the CDU/CSU union.

The big picture: Laschet will replace Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who had been Merkel's hand-picked successor. She resigned resigned as part chair in 2018 with the CDU losing votes to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and to the Greens on the left.

  • The party has regained strength due to perceptions that Merkel has handled the COVID-19 crisis successfully.
  • The CDU/CSU union leads the most recent opinion poll with 37%, followed by the Greens (20%), the center-left Social Democratic Party (15%) and the AfD (10%).

The bottom line: Laschet, a Merkel loyalist, has promised to keep the party in the "middle of society," signaling a preservation of Merkel's policies.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.