As long as that opportunity is not lost, that is, as long as the Social Democratic election winner SPD has not formed a government with the Greens and the liberal FDP (numbers three and four), Laschet will keep the power option open. That explains why the CDU/CSU deviated from the tradition of electing a party leader for a year in the first meeting of the new Bundestag faction on Tuesday. Instead, the previous party leader was re-elected for six months.
