Big election defeat
Saar CDU leader Tobias Hans gives up party chairmanship
Tobias Hans drove the worst CDU result in decades in Saarland.
© Oliver Dietze / DPA
After the clear defeat of the CDU in the state elections in Saarland, party leader and top candidate Tobias Hans is taking the announced consequences.
Saarland Prime Minister Tobias Hans is giving up the CDU state presidency after the heavy defeat in the state elections. At a party conference on May 28th, the 44-year-old said after a meeting of the CDU state executive board in Saarbrücken that a decision should be made about the personnel reorganization. He himself will no longer stand for the state presidency. The previous President of the State Parliament, Stephan Toscani, declared his willingness to run for office at the meeting, said Hans.
“It was an honor to have served this country”
In March 2018, Hans became Prime Minister and successor to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who had switched to federal politics at the time. He has since led a grand coalition of the CDU and SPD. In autumn 2018, Hans also took over the CDU presidency in Saarland.
Hans had already announced a decision to resign on Sunday evening after the election: “It was an honor for me to have served this country as prime minister and an honor to have served you as party chairman,” he said.
He ran for the first time in a state election as a top candidate, but his party was unable to defend its position as the strongest force. According to the provisional final result, the CDU only received 28.5 percent of the votes and lost more than 12 percentage points compared to the 2017 state election (result 2017: 40.7 percent).