Analysis: President against his will

If Claude Wiseler is elected as the new president this Saturday at his party's digital national convention – there is no opposing candidate – the ex-minister, ex-faction leader, ex-secretary-general, ex-vice-president, ex-capital city councilor and ex-top candidate will have been through all the posts one can have as a politician. Almost.

The only thing the ex-hopeful of the Christian Social Party has not yet achieved is the prime minister's chair, and that is likely to remain the case, since the 61-year-old has said that he has no intention of becoming the CSV's top candidate again, as he emphasised to us at the beginning of the week. But as Sean Connery said in his last role as James Bond: Never say never.

The favorite historical figure of Wiseler, however, is not Agent 007 but Winston Churchill: because he "never gave up", as Wiseler had stated two years ago in a summer interview in the Journal inspired by Proust's questionnaire; at the time, he appropriately named "perseverance" as his main character trait.

The fact that Claude Wiseler will now become the 13th president in the history of the party – hopefully not a bad omen – has nothing to do with him having such a great desire to take on this post. It is simply due to the fact that no other CSV member dared to take on this hellish job, in which there is nothing to gain at the moment, but a lot to lose.