Conservatives in Germany Start to Regroup

Germany’s opposition Christian Democratic Union sought to close a damaging chapter in its history Tuesday by electing a new parliamentary leader unscathed by a finance scandal linked to former chancellor and party head Helmut Kohl.

After weeks on the defensive, the conservatives lifted a member of the post-Kohl generation into a top post for the first time.

Lawmakers from the Christian Democrats and their Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union, chose Friedrich Merz, a 44-year-old tax expert from the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, for the job of faction leader in the federal legislature by a vote of 217 to 7.

“Today we start lining up a new team,” said CSU Chairman Edmund Stoiber. “I’m convinced that he will be not only a new beginning but also a very convincing leader.”

“It’s a ray of hope,” he said.

Merz, a two-term lawmaker, has shot to prominence as a sharp-tongued debater since Kohl was voted out as chancellor in 1998. He has not spared even Kohl, whose illegal fund-raising while he was in power set off the scandal last fall.

He will replace Wolfgang Schaeuble, who was party chairman and parliamentary leader but resigned both posts amid criticism of his inability to contain the Kohl affair.

A separate race for party chairman, a position that normally ensures the incumbent the post of chancellor should the CDU win a general election, will not be officially decided until March 20.

The CDU is hoping the arrival of new faces such as Merz, a towering figure standing 6-foot-6, will bring a degree of stability to the party that has plunged in voter surveys.

Kohl, who was chancellor for 16 years, admitted late last year that he had accepted about $1 million in illegal campaign donations. He has refused requests from parliament to name the sources of the funds.