With its new leader, is Germany's ruling party returning to its Catholic roots?

Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has a new leader, after the party conference in Hamburg elected Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, known as AKK for short, to take over from Chancellor Angela Merkel, party leader since 2000. AKK is now likely to take over as chancellor when Merkel eventually stands down from government. In her acceptance speech, the new leader proclaimed herself the candidate of unity: “There is no conservative or liberal union. There is only one CDU.”

However, unity only narrowly won the day in Hamburg, with AKK defeating Friedrich Merz on the second ballot by 517 votes to 482. In many ways it seemed that the leadership vote was really a proxy vote on the CDU’s departing leader, with whom AKK is closely identified, and the result shows just how split the CDU has become.