 |
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer |
The
address marked the beginning of her gradual exit from both German
politics and the world stage. Merkel has led the conservative Christian
Democratic Union (CDU) since 2000, and been the country's chancellor
since 2005.
“It
is now the time to open a new chapter, it was a great pleasure for me,
it was an honor,” Merkel said as she concluded her speech. Delegates
held up signs reading: “Thank You, Boss.
”
Merkel, 64, later handed the baton to a successor at the party congress in Hamburg.
Annegret
Kramp-Karrenbauer, who was widely seen as the chancellor's favorite and
has been branded a "mini-Merkel" by some media outlets, was elected as her replacement on Friday.
Kramp-Karrenbauer — who often goes by her initials AKK — got
about 52 percent of the vote in in a run-off with Friedrich Merz, a
former lawmaker who left politics to work as a corporate lawyer.
German party leaders, including Merkel, have traditionally been selected through backroom deals and faced no competition during confirmation votes at party conventions.
German party leaders, including Merkel, have traditionally been selected through backroom deals and faced no competition during confirmation votes at party conventions.
But for the first time since
1971, CDU delegates were on Friday given the opportunity to elect their
new party leader from among several candidates.
Like Merkel, Kramp-Karrenbauer represents
the more moderate wing of their party. The 56-year-old (born 9
August 1962) is a mother of
three who previously served as the governor of the small German state of
Saarland.
The two other candidates who hoped to replace
her for the CDU post had both openly criticized some of the chancellor’s
policies in the past.
Jens
Spahn, Germany's 38-year-old health minister, repeatedly spoke out
against Merkel's open-door migration policy which resulted in the arrival of nearly a million refugees.
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