Overview
- Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer won the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung chair in Berlin by 28 votes to 21, with one abstention, in the foundation’s first contested leadership vote.
- Günter Krings, formally proposed by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, lost the contest; Merz attended the meeting to support him, later congratulated Kramp-Karrenbauer, and Krings was elected to the board.
- Kramp-Karrenbauer is set to assume the post on January 1, 2026, succeeding Norbert Lammert, who was named honorary chairman.
- Roughly 50 voting members chose the new chair in a small, influential assembly of current and former CDU figures.
- The outcome was widely framed as a political setback for Merz and a sign of intra-party divisions, underscoring the strategic weight of the globally active foundation, which reports about 95 foreign offices and some 1,500 employees.