Markus Söder: CDU salvation?

Germany’s national government has been led by the CDU/CSU for the last 16 years; but with Angela Merkel’s departure in September, other main parties are questioning the Christian Democrats’ inevitability as partners in power; these doubts are being amplified on the back of a turn for the worse in pandemic management and poor CDU performances in recent state-level elections. But is the party’s situation genuinely as bad as commentators say it is? And whether it stays in government or crashes out, what role will the CSU leader Markus Söder have in its fate this year and thereafter?