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The CDU Saxony-Anhalt demands from the top of the federal party "to enable a timely election of the CDU federal chairman".
A corresponding application was submitted to the CDU federal executive today, the state executive announced.
The Christian Democrats want to prevent an "even longer hanging game", also with regard to next year's federal election, this is "unacceptable".
The CDU federal executive had canceled the party congress planned for December 4th and thus also the election of the new party leadership on Monday.
The reason: the increasing number of corona infections.
If a face-to-face party congress is not possible at the beginning of the new year, a digital party congress should be held, possibly with a subsequent postal vote by the CDU boss.
Friedrich Merz, who is applying for the successor to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer alongside NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet and foreign policy maker Norbert Röttgen, had shown himself to be deeply angry about the renewed postponement.
Merz openly doubts that the development of the corona infection numbers was actually decisive for the cancellation of the party congress.
Instead, he accused the “party establishment” in interviews of wanting to prevent his election.
In the CDU Saxony-Anhalt, in which Merz has many supporters, some share this suspicion.
"I do not think that we will have a different corona situation in January or February than we are now, so why postpone the election of the chairman?" Said the Saxony-Anhalt CDU member of the state parliament, Guido Heuer, to SPIEGEL.
"Some MPs, including myself, think that they want to prevent Merz."
The state association is now calling on the federal party to let the party base elect the new party leader by postal vote.
"The state executive asks the CDU federal executive in this context to examine the possibility of a primary election of the federal chairman and thereby enable a change to the statutes of the CDU in Germany in a written circulation procedure," says the message on Wednesday.
Two years ago, when Merz had already run for chairmanship and was only slightly defeated by Kramp-Karrenbauer, the regional association had already organized a member survey as a mood test.
At that time, Merz got around 56 percent of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt.
Michael Sack, state chairman of the CDU Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, can understand the cancellation of the party congress.
But he, too, insists on the question of the new party leader being resolved quickly.
“A concept has to be developed that allows a decision to be reached on the chairman's question.
Better sooner than later, ”Sack told SPIEGEL.
Saxony's CDU Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer called the cancellation of the party congress very regrettable.
“But it was the only sensible decision.” The decision on a new party chairman “can and must, even if this realization is bitter, be a few weeks back,” said Kretschmer.
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