Merz re-elected CDU chairman

At the The three-day federal party conference of the CDU began in Berlin on Monday. CDU leader Friedrich Merz was confirmed in his office with a clear majority. As the conference presidium announced, out of 972 valid votes, 873 delegates voted for the 68-year-old.

Also Party colleague and CDU General Secretary Casten Linnemann was clearly elected to office. The 46-year-old received 91.4 percent of the valid delegate votes on Monday. Linnemann has previously only held the position on an interim basis under the then incumbent Mario Czaja. Christina Stumpp was elected deputy general secretary.

In addition, two East German politicians were elected to the presidium. The state chairman of the CDU Saxony-Anhalt, Sven Schulze, took over from Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff. According to the CDU, he gave up his voting position and proposed Schulze as his successor. Schulze was elected with 68 percent of the vote.

The Thuringian parliamentary group leader Mario Voigt received around 91 percent of the delegate votes. He is the only Thuringian to be part of the party’s 16-member leadership committee. In addition, Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer remains one of five deputies.

At the start of the party conference, the re-elected party leader emphasized the Union’s will to govern in his speech. Under the motto “Winning the future together” the party wants to initiate its return to government responsibility. “We are back, and the word conservative can also be found in our program again. Yes, we are also a conservative party, and no one has any inhibitions about saying that clearly and clearly anymore.”

The CDU will fight for first place and it will deal with the AfD. With her new basic program, she is “ready to take over government responsibility for Germany again immediately and by autumn of next year at the latest,” said Merz. He underlined the importance of the party in recent years. In the past, the CDU has been in government more often than any other party.

The CDU’s new basic program will be discussed and adopted on Tuesday. It is intended to represent the conservative claim that the party had debated for two and a half years. Here too, the leitmotif is freedom, security, performance and guiding culture. According to Linnemann, it should provide a model for Germany.

The draft program revises several basic decisions made by former Chancellor and long-time CDU leader Angela Merkel, such as the exit from nuclear power and the welcoming culture in asylum policy. In migration policy, the concept of safe third countries is represented, according to which every asylum applicant in Europe should be transferred to a safe third country and go through an asylum procedure there. The party conference will also discuss the reintroduction of compulsory military service and the demand for a compulsory year of service.

Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer was initially satisfied. The new CDU basic program exactly meets the opinion of the conservative people in the Free State of Saxony.

Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff does not see the Union’s candidate for chancellor in the federal elections as a successful candidate for chancellor without a tailwind and votes from the east. In the past, the Union Chancellors were prevented by poor results in the East, said the CDU politician on Monday at the federal party conference in Berlin.

The former state chairman of the Thuringian CDU, Mike Mohring, withdrew his candidacy for the party’s federal executive board. This emerges from the provisional list of candidates published by the CDU for the election of the federal executive board. Mohring lacks the support of his regional association. He unanimously suggested CDU state leader Mario Voigt. The Thuringian CDU had already asked Mohring several times to withdraw.

The background is a scandal surrounding bills to celebrate Mohring’s 50th birthday, which were initially paid from the district association’s account. Mohring has been a member of the CDU’s federal executive board since 2010, with one interruption.

MDR/KNA/AFP/dpa (dni,kar, mbe, lmb)