Mario Czaja had been CDU general secretary for a good 1.5 years Photo: dpa
From BZ
Boss Friedrich Merz is replacing his general secretary Mario Czaja after a good year and a half. Both had “today mutually agreed to end their cooperation at the top of the party,” said the CDU in Berlin on Tuesday. Carsten Linnemann, member of the Bundestag and head of the policy committee of the CDU, is to be his successor.
Back then, Linnemann was Merz’s first choice for the post of Secretary General. But at the time it was said internally: Merz cannot anchor another top man from NRW in the Adenauer house. So – allegedly only a few days before the freestyle at the party congress – the choice fell on Czaja as a substitute.
Merz and Czaja – this combination surprised everyone. The Berlin man from the CDU social wing and the conservative party leader seemed to have little in common. But that could also be a strength. Merz was impressed that Czaja had directly won his Marzahn-Hellersdorf constituency in Berlin, which had previously been considered an impregnable left-wing stronghold.
Instead, his actual favorite candidate and confidant Linnemann became party deputy and head of the commission for the basic program.
But Czaja didn’t warm to his new task profile and remained extremely pale. Hardly any accents of his own, almost no effective attacks on traffic lights – some were already reminded of Angela Merkel’s first Secretary General Ruprecht Polenz, whom the party leader had quickly exchanged for Laurenz Mayer because he was acutely overwhelmed – he was only Secretary General from April to November 2000, Czaja at least a year and a half.