Julia Klöckner succeeded in entering the Bundestag despite the loss of her direct mandate, but she is drawing conclusions for her position as state chairman after the election failure of the Rhineland-Palatinate CDU.
After criticism from within her own ranks and the poor performance of the CDU, the Rhineland-Palatinate CDU leader Julia Klöckner has announced that she will no longer stand as chairwoman at the state party conference in November after eleven years. Klöckner announced this in the evening at a state board meeting in Mainz. Klöckner justified her step by saying that she wanted to make a completely new start possible in her party. She discussed this with her family some time ago.
CDU Rhineland-Palatinate accepts Klöckner’s decision
Klöckner also said that the coming weeks would be used for the realignment in order to broadly involve the base and to give the new management a strong vote for the future. Participants say that Klöckner’s step was respectfully accepted.
Criticized after a bad election result
After the historically poor election result of the CDU in Rhineland-Palatinate, criticism was also leveled at the state chairman. The CDU politician Xaver Jung, for example, demanded that Julia Klöckner should make her office as state chairwoman available. “The result was so expected. This is a vote of no confidence in the leadership of the CDU,” said the Bundestag candidate in the Kaiserslautern constituency. He was inferior to the SPD applicant Matthias Mieves. Jung went on to say: “With the decision for this candidate for Chancellor I was out of the running. It is the second gigantic defeat for the CDU in the country. That must have consequences. Julia Klöckner must make her offices available.”
Klöckner had to fear moving into the Bundestag
Julia Klöckner did not have a mandate in the Bundestag for ten years, worked in state politics in Rhineland-Palatinate and was most recently Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture. She now wanted to move back into the Bundestag through her home constituency of Kreuznach. Klöckner failed to achieve this goal. It received 29.1 percent of the first votes. Your competitor from the SPD, Joe Weingarten, got 33 percent of the vote.
At first it was unclear whether Klöckner could still move into the Bundestag. The state chairwoman of the Rhineland-Palatinate CDU is in first place on the CDU state list. However, it was unclear whether the state list would even be used. In the last election this was not the case, because so many CDU candidates had taken direct seats that all of the Bundestag seats were already full.
Close matter
It has now been clear since Monday morning that Klöckner will still move into the Bundestag. According to the preliminary results of the Bundestag election, nine CDU members are coming to the Berlin parliament – seven by direct mandate. This means that the people who have moved from places 1 and 2 in the state lists to the Bundestag: Julia Klöckner and Thomas Gebhart.
“Of course I’m disappointed that we didn’t manage to win this time.”
In a press release, Klöckner regrets that it was not enough to be one step ahead this time. She thanks her supporters on site.
Regarding the reasons for the defeat, it is said that the federal trend of the CDU did not make it easy on the ground. The SPD’s campaign also suggested that Klöckner would enter the Bundestag via the state list anyway and would not have to win the constituency directly.
You will continue to work for the interests of the region, said Klöckner. There will continue to be citizen consultation hours, and constituency offices are to be opened in Bad Kreuznach and Idar-Oberstein.
Joe Weingarten recaptured the constituency for the SPD
The SPD last managed to win the Kreuznach constituency in 2002. Joe Weingarten has now succeeded. He got 33 percent of the vote. Four years ago he was still slightly inferior, but later moved up for Andrea Nahles in the Bundestag.
Member of the Bundestag Joe Weingarten (SPD)
Marco Urban
Without the direct mandate, he would certainly not have made it back into the Bundestag via the penultimate place on the SPD state list. His reaction was correspondingly happy: “A sensation! We prevailed against the state chairwoman of the CDU and federal minister. I am glad that I was able to make my contribution to ensuring that the SPD is successful again here after 20 years.”