Recently at a kitchen party in Berlin-Kreuzberg, where there are probably still more CD shops than CDU voters: A young father raves about the advantages of a weekend cottage in Brandenburg, the usual. Society is pricked up when the speaker reports about a “totally exciting” Christian Democrat in the Oderland in the Brandenburg region. If the party had more people like this Sabine Buder, he says, then one could seriously consider voting for black at some point.
A CDU local politician from Brandenburg who becomes part of a party talk in Kreuzberg cannot be an ordinary politician per se. But now Sabine Buder has impressively demonstrated why her reputation for refreshing otherness precedes her. On Tuesday, to everyone’s surprise, she tried to enter the competition for the CDU chairmanship – so that at least one woman could compete against the men from Norbert Röttgen, Helge Braun and Friedrich Merz.
But Buder’s attempt failed in an equally unusual way. Her own district association Märkisch-Oderland denied her the support she would have needed for a valid candidacy. In a hastily called district board meeting on Tuesday evening, her request for nomination was rejected with seven to four votes. After all, Buder’s level of awareness is likely to have increased abruptly, not only in Kreuzberg.
“Unprofessional Harakiri Action”
Sabine Buder says: “Of course you can now say that it was an unprofessional hara-kiri campaign.” But she still thinks it’s right to have tried. “I would do it again,” she says, without sounding defiant.
Buder is 37 years old, the mother of four children and runs a veterinary practice in Biesenthal. She has only been in the CDU since 2018, but secured direct candidacy in her constituency for the federal election in 2021, only to fail just about to enter parliament. Some in the district association also describe them as cheeky and self-indulgent. How did she come up with the idea of trying to become party chairman? “Quite spontaneously,” says Buder.
No one expected her because a few days ago she wrote on Facebook: “From my point of view, there can only be one person for the job.” She also provided a photo of Friedrich Merz and the hashtag # ReadyFürMerz.
You still stand by the post, says Buder now: “I think Merz is cool.” But that’s not the point for them. In view of a field of applicants of “three gentlemen from the old federal states”, the woman from the somewhat newer states simply said: “There has to be more going in a party with 400,000 members.”
“Several upcoming animal operations”
It has annoyed her for a long time that it is said again and again that after Angela Merkel and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer there are no more women in the CDU who trust themselves to be top positions. When Buder was tidying up her practice on Monday evening, she thought of a line from a television comedian that she had recently heard: “In the CDU,” she recounts, “three men are still looking for a female side pony. “
As an animal expert, of course, she knows what it’s all about: the only job of the side pony is to keep the main horse happy, she says. To her horror, Buder stated: “That actually describes the current situation of the CDU quite well.”
Then she went over to her husband and said you know what, maybe I have to apply myself. He actually says: “Yes, maybe you have to.”
After the defeat in the vote less than 24 hours later in the district executive, her party friends said: “You have to better prepare this kind of thing and establish networks beforehand.” But that’s exactly what Buder didn’t want. She says it is not part of her concept of intra-party democracy to only compete when you know you will win. And now? Sabine Buder is looking forward to “several upcoming animal operations, and then life goes on.”