A CDU chairperson, Friedrich Merz, has expressed regret over the low percentage of women in the party’s parliamentary faction and has promised a better representation in the upcoming cabinet.
At the Leserkongress of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) in Frankfurt on Friday, Merz did not support the official demand of CDU women for a cabinet with a 50% female representation. Instead, he only promised a higher percentage of women in the cabinet, but did not specify a concrete figure.
The chair of the group of women in the CDU/CSU parliamentary faction, Mechthild Heil, had told the FAZ on Wednesday that they were demanding “50 percent of the appointments in leadership positions” in the federal government, at the party’s parliamentary chair, in committee chairmanships, as well as in spokesperson roles or in bodies like the broadcasting council. The group had also formulated such demands in a letter to the parliamentary group’s business manager, Thorsten Frei.
Merz claimed to have “intensively encouraged women to run for the German parliament on various occasions.” He, however, attributed the low percentage of women in the party’s parliamentary faction to the new electoral law, which he described as a “luxury problem.” According to him, the party’s chair has little influence on the selection of candidates, as the local associations often choose the candidates themselves.
Currently, around 26 percent of the CDU’s parliamentary members are women, a figure that is expected to drop to 23 percent in the new parliament, which will be constituted on the coming Tuesday. Merz expressed his regret over this development, pointing out that he had proposed the current CDU treasurer, Julia Klöckner, as the president of the Bundestag. “We are starting well” he said and reminded that Klöckner’s future office is the second-highest state office in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The replacement of Klöckner in the CDU’s presidency will also be a woman, Merz announced. He called on women to engage in the CDU, saying, “I can’t even imagine it. We need you” he said.