CDU politicians ditch their mandate – Kramp-Karrenbauer and Altmaier surprisingly give way

Two weeks after its historic defeat in the federal election, the CDU is struggling to find the right way to start over. Economy Minister Peter Altmaier, 63, and Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, 59, announced on Saturday in Saarbrücken that they are relinquishing their parliamentary mandate.

The two CDU politicians are paving the way for two of the party’s younger friends, Nadine Schön, 38, and Marcus Ull, 41, who will join the new Bundestag as a successor from the CDU slate. The two were grateful and surprised at the same time. Uhl said he had already reported his apartment in Berlin and only a few hours earlier had learned that he would now remain a Member of Parliament.

Altmaier emphasized that it is important to make a generational change now. “Regeneration is possible, you just have to want it,” he added. It is not enough, said Kramp-Karrenbauer, to simply say that the state and the party are more important than the political life of the individual. Now is the situation «where you have to do it». According to their own statements, Altmaier and Kramp-Karrenbauer will keep their ministerial positions until a new federal government is formed.

Angela Merkel’s friend

Altmaier and Kramp-Karrenbauer are both long-term companions of Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU). Altmaier has been a member of the Bundestag since 1994 and held several ministerial positions, including several years as head of the Chancellery.

Kramp-Karrenbauer was Prime Minister of Saarland until she moved to Berlin as CDU General Secretary in 2018. In December 2018, she was elected chairwoman of the CDU with a narrow score in a vote against Friedrich Merz. In February 2020, as a result of the governmental crisis in Thuringia, she announced her resignation from the party presidency.

Reorganization of the leadership of the Christian Democratic Union

The union had collapsed to 24.1 percent in the federal election, while the Social Democratic Party had become the strongest force. CDU President Armin Laschet announced Thursday that he wants to submit a proposal to the party’s top executive bodies on Monday for reorganization. He wants to calm this process himself.

Disagreement remains in the CDU leadership over what role the party base should play in the event of a personnel change at the head of the Federalist party. Member representative Henning Otte told dpa that it is important to enhance opportunities for participation in decision-making processes within the party so that the CDU is also attractive to young people and youth.

In order to renew the staff, he said, “Now it is a matter of finding a figure behind whom the vast majority of the approximately 400,000 members of the CDU, who makes a political claim to reorganization, can rally.”

CDU Secretary General Paul Zimyak said the election result was a turning point. “It’s about our future as a people’s party.” He now wants to “gather opinions, analyzes and suggestions for a comprehensive treatment process from among the whole of the Party.”

Soder: “In the end, the Germans wanted another candidate for chancellor”

CSU President Markus Soder attributes the union’s poor result in the federal election to chancellor Armin Laschet (CDU) unpopular candidate and poor campaign strategy. “It goes like this: in the end, the Germans wanted a different candidate for chancellor than the one put forward by the CDU and CSU,” Sodder said Saturday at the National Assembly of the Young Union (JU) in Deggendorf. “Just as I played a role we weren’t quite sure from the start what strategy we were actually going with in terms of content.”

SDA / ij

Posted today at 8:25 PM

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