Corruption claims threaten to damage Germany's CDU party

Angela Merkel's party tries to distance itself from pandemic deals scandal as elections loom

Corruption allegations and mounting frustration with Germany's slow vaccination roll-out are threatening to damage Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in weather-vane state elections this Sunday, as the centre-right party is trying to distance itself from politicians whose companies are alleged to have made profits on the back of mask procurement deals.

In the south-western states of Baden-Wurttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, voters will go to the polls this weekend while digesting the allegations that one lawmaker from the CDU and one from its Bavarian sister-party, the CSU, earned six-figure commissions for brokering deals to procure face masks during last year's first wave of the pandemic.