ARMIN LASCHET could scarcely conceal his delight last year when the carnival club in his hometown of Aachen, Germany, named him an honorary knight. “Finally I get a job on the first attempt, without having to lose twice first,” he said. Faced with the kind of painful setbacks Laschet has suffered in his career, most politicians would have given up and tried something else. He slipped off the greasy pole so many times that some thought he would never get back on it again. But the affable 59-year-old always bounced back. And on Jan. 16 he scored his biggest victory yet, winning the election for leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) — the party that was led by Angela Merkel for almost two decades — in a runoff vote during the digital party conference, beating center-right candidate Friedrich Merz, by 521 votes to 466, to resolve a three-way contest that had also featured the foreign policy expert Norbert Rottgen. The win is said to place him in a good position to replace Merkel as chancellor if their ruling coalition retains power in September this year, when the country goes to polls. Merkel would be stepping down that month, after completing 16 years in office. Among the three candidates, Laschet, who since 2017 has been the premier of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), is the one who stands most strongly for a continuation of Merkel’s centrist course. Laschet is a loyal supporter of Merkel and is seen as a continuity candidate of her course at Germany’s helm. He stood behind Merkel during the 2015 refugee crisis, at a time when she faced strong opposition from within the center-right party. A political moderate, Laschet has a pro-EU stance and is seen as friendly to immigrants. If anything, he is seen as even more pro-migration than Merkel, celebrating diversity as an economic and social boon to his state. A Catholic who hails from the Rhine region and the son of a miner, Laschet is a former lawyer and journalist who served in the German parliament from 1994 to 1998, and then in the European parliament from 1999 and 2005. In 2010, he joined the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia and became its premier in 2017. The 2017 victory was notable, as Laschet was able to dislodge from power, the center-left Social Democrats, who had ruled the state for most of the previous five decades. Since 2012, he has served as one of the CDU’s five deputy chairpersons. During his campaign to become CDU chief, Laschet warned against changing the direction of the party, saying that “a break with Angela Merkel would send exactly the wrong signal.” Laschet favors stronger relations with France and has been Germany’s representative for Franco-German relations for two years. Reports also said that he would push for closer ties with the U.S. under the Biden administration, calling Biden’s win a “victory for democracy.” Although Laschet has taken over the reins of the party, this does not mean that his path to chancellorship is guaranteed, as other leaders from the ruling coalition are expected to challenge him for the top post. Interestingly, Laschet’s political heft took a hit last year, after reports said that he pressed for an early relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions, angering Merkel. Laschet emerged as an early favorite when the race to head the party was thrown open last year after the surprise resignation of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. But his path to the top was anything but smooth, with critics accusing him of flip-flopping and poor leadership over his handling of the pandemic in North Rhine-Westphalia. In the spring, Laschet pushed aggressively for the loosening of restrictions to curb the spread of the virus — only to backtrack after a huge outbreak at a slaughterhouse. He also sparked a row when he appeared to blame eastern Europeans for importing new coronavirus cases to Germany. In regards to foreign policy, it is expected that Laschet will continue to strengthen the executive powers of the European Union while revitalizing the transatlantic profile of the party, as they intend to push for cooperation with the Biden administration on climate and trade policy. Laschet is very close to French President Emmanuel Macron and is a Francophile, like many German politicians from the Rhine area. He is expected to work closely with the French Government on a number of international issues. Laschet will also presumably try to keep communication channels with Russia open, just as Merkel has tried to do. He had condemned the annexation of Crimea but has also stated that a relationship with Russia is necessary to maintain a degree of international stability in the East. He said in 2019: “Russia is of central importance to international security. That fact alone makes dialogue necessary. Even during the most tense times in the Cold War, there was an exchange with the West: in science, trade, culture and civil society.” And while Laschet has come under fire for his stance on Syria in 2014, after he accused the then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry of supporting ISIS against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, he appears to have walked back from some of his remarks. He told BILD last year that he has “never defended Bashar al-Assad in his entire life.” In many ways, Germany’s foreign policy will not change significantly compared to the Merkel years. Laschet became a career politician after a brief stint as a journalist at a Bavarian broadcasting station following law school. Laschet was long considered the “nearly man” of German politics. He won a seat in the Bundestag, parliament of Germany, in his early 30s but lost it again four years later. In 2010 he ran to be boss of the CDU’s branch in his home state of North Rhine-Westphalia — and was once again defeated. In the race for the CDU leadership he was also the underdog. For weeks he trailed his two rivals, Merz, a corporate lawyer popular with conservatives in the party, and Rottgen, chairman of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee. But in the end he beat them both. One characteristic that has helped him win through is his good humor. Affable and approachable, he frequently appears in fancy dress at carnival time. The award he won in Aachen last February was the “Medal Against Deadly Seriousness,” in recognition of his “individuality, popularity and natural wit.” However, for some traditional hardliners in the party, he has an image problem: he is seen as too liberal and too closely identified with Merkel. As a minister in the NRW Cabinet of the 2000s, he touted the benefits of immigration, saying in 2009 that ethnic and religious diversity should be seen as a “chance” for Germany, “not a threat.” Fellow Christian Democrats nicknamed him “Turk Armin.” “He was the first politician in this country to really give people from immigrant communities the feeling they were important,” said Serap Güler, who worked as his adviser in the 2000s and is now his state secretary for integration. That carried through into the refugee crisis of 2015, when Laschet was such a staunch defender of the chancellor’s “open-door” immigration policy that the Berlin press called him “Merkel’s bodyguard.” Having won the leadership election, he is now well-placed to run as the CDU’s candidate for chancellor in September’s election. To become the CDU’s chancellor candidate, Laschet may have to fend off challenges from Germany’s health minister Jens Spahn and Bavarian leader Markus Soder, both popular figures, reports said.(SD-Agencies) | 