LEIPZIG: Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the under-fire leader of Germany’s ruling Christian Democrats (CDU), on Friday threatened to quit, forcing her chief critic to back down and pledge his loyalty.

In a combative speech at the start of the CDU’s party congress, the 57-year-old challenged her critics to stand up and be heard if they disagreed with her leadership.

Widely known by her initials “AKK”, the defence minister has endured a rocky first year at the helm since taking over the party leadership from her mentor Chancellor Angela Merkel at last year’s conference.

With mutinous grumblings growing over her leadership style and criticisms of the coalition government, Kramp-Karrenbauer threw down the gauntlet.

“If you are of the opinion that the Germany I want is not the one you want... then we should end it. Here, now and today,” she told the party gathering in Leipzig.

“To stand here as a party and say that everything we have done in the last 14 years was wrong is not a good election strategy,” she warned.

The comments were a thinly-veiled barb at 64-year-old lawyer Friedrich Merz, who narrowly lost out to Kramp-Karrenbauer in last year’s leadership vote.

Merz, a delegate at this weekend’s conference, returned to the limelight in recent weeks when he described the CDU-led government as “abysmal” and accused Merkel of poor leadership.

But as AKK won a standing ovation lasting seven minutes, and with party heavyweights lining up to praise her, Merz dramatically backed down.

“We are loyal to our party chairs and our party leadership, and to the government that we have carried for 50 years, and those were good years for Germany,” he told the congress.

While not wading directly into the war of words, Merkel had in her opening remarks urged the party to stay united, saying that it should “heed” the motto of the congress in past years — leading together and bringing together.

As Merkel nears the end of her fourth consecutive term, the CDU has been struggling to put down party infighting over her legacy and over the future shape of the party.

Pressure is also increasing on the centre-right party, as it has been struggling to halt a haemorrhage of voters to the Greens and to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). AKK’s own reputation has also suffered due to a string of PR gaffes.

In April, she was widely condemned for an ill-judged joke about transgender bathrooms. A month later, she incurred the wrath of Youtubers with an attack on freedom of speech online.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2019