The executive minister of the Chancellery, Helge Braun, justified in a letter to all CDU members on Friday evening why he wanted to be the next party chairman. “We are all depressed by the historically poor result in the federal election. And we are annoyed by the way we lost,” writes Braun. The list of “failures and disputes” is long. The CDU cannot and should not continue like this.
In order to gain new strength, a fundamental new beginning is necessary. As an “emergency doctor and doctor in the field of anesthesia, emergency and intensive medicine”, he learned to deal professionally with crisis situations. “Human togetherness” is important to him. And he “likes to work in a team”. Therefore, as a “cooperative chairman” in the leadership, he would also like to give other “distinguished personalities” the space. Braun can also imagine working with Merz.
The party “did not take a clear enough position”
The Chancellery Minister admits that the CDU has “not discussed enough and not enough position has been taken in the last few years.” He “feels a great longing that we define more clearly what the ideas and concepts of the CDU in Germany are”. The time in the opposition will therefore have to be “used intensively” in order to sharpen the profile of the CDU in terms of content.
However, Braun avoids stipulating the contentious issues. He only writes: “Wherever there are particularly divergent positions in the CDU, we have to clarify these in the interests of strengthening our profile. Such topics exist, for example, between copyright and digital policy or between ecology and economy.”
At the side of Angela Merkel, “I was able to learn a lot,” says Braun’s letter. “We overcame crises and governed Germany well – and always acted as one.” From this time he brought “a lot of knowledge in all political fields”, which he wanted to bring to the “content renewal process”. The Chancellery Minister also points out that he has experience at the party base. He has been district chairman of the CDU for 18 years and district chairman for 14 years, and party work gives him “pleasure”.
In addition to Braun, the foreign politician Norbert Röttgen and ex-Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz are also interested in the CDU chairmanship. On Friday, Röttgen presented Franziska Hoppermann, MP from Hamburg, as his candidate for the office of Secretary General. Braun, on the other hand, has not yet presented any team members.
Ralph Brinkhaus is to remain the parliamentary group leader
However, the Chancellery Minister is already making several suggestions as to how a new party leader and his general secretary should change the CDU headquarters: Members should be more involved, campaign capabilities should be increased and service through the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus should be improved. In addition, on the evening after each federal board meeting, one of the leading board members should explain the result of the meeting in a member-open digital conference and present it for discussion.
Like Röttgen, Braun only wants to run for party chairmanship. In his opinion, Ralph Brinkhaus should remain chairman of the parliamentary group. The electoral congress takes place in January. The member survey on the CDU chairmanship will start at the beginning of December. The counting and the announcement of the results are planned for December 17th. If none of the candidates achieve an absolute majority, there is a runoff election.