Mario Czaja spent a year and a half in office as CDU general secretary before party leader Friedrich Merz decided to fill the position. The designated successor: Carsten Linnemann, head of the CDU policy commission and party vice since 2022.
He didn’t make the decision easy for himself, Merz wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. Now the CDU chairman expresses himself in more detail. Linnemann is “firmly anchored in the CDU and enjoys great trust in the party,” said Merz. Thanks are due to Mario Cazaj for his work. The federal board unanimously appointed Linnemann to the office. The party is now facing major challenges and has to do intensive work, also with regard to the upcoming state elections and the 2024 European elections.
Linnemann himself announced that he would get to work immediately and offered his support for the upcoming state elections in 2023. In addition, the new general secretary stated that he wanted to make his contribution to ensuring that people know again what the CDU stands for and what it doesn’t. Especially in times of a “tectonic power shift” and increasing polarization, people expect orientation and support, says Linnemann. The current federal government does not give this support.
When asked about a possible preference for the economic wing in the party, Merz explained that he and Linnemann were not representatives of a wing in their functions. They are both of the opinion that “economic policy and social policy are not opposites”. They felt equally committed to both subject areas.
In contrast to Czaja, Linnemann is well connected in the party. The CDU General Secretary, who has now been deposed, was accused of organizational weaknesses and insufficient public visibility from within his own ranks. With Linnemann, a former head of the CDU economic wing would follow Czaja, who is considered more of a progressive and social representative in the CDU. Accordingly, the first criticism came from the employee wing of the party, the CDU had to appear more social, according to its representatives. Merz indirectly addresses this criticism at the press conference. The move from Czaja to Merz: “It’s a change of personnel, but not a change of direction.”
The CDU member of the Bundestag, Roderich Kiesewetter, recommended Merz to open up more to the center in order to cover the entire potential electorate. “If he now has a general secretary who is very conservative, he has the chance to build the necessary bridges to mainstream society, including the Greens and the Liberals,” Kiesewetter said on ZDF’s “Morgenmagazin”.
The CDU leadership has recently come under pressure to justify itself. Despite the sometimes chaotic conditions in the traffic light coalition, the Union, under the leadership of Merz, has not yet managed to clearly outgrow poll numbers of 30 percent. Instead, the AfD in particular has increased recently.
The Hans-Georg Maassen cause is currently also a burden for the CDU. The former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, who is a member of the Thuringia state association, has long attracted attention with right-wing statements. The CDU federal party is therefore urging Maaßen to be expelled from the CDU for behavior that is harmful to the party. However, the application failed in the first instance before the district arbitration court in Thuringia, as was announced on Tuesday.