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Helge Braun: "I would like a comprehensive reform not only in terms of content, but also in terms of organization."
Photo: Markus Schreiber / AP
Five days before the application deadline, the foreign politician Norbert Röttgen and the executive head of the Chancellery, Helge Braun, announced their candidacy for the CDU chairmanship on Friday.
Both called for a repositioning of the content of the party after the debacle in the federal election.
It is expected that the ex-chairman of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Friedrich Merz, will still stand.
In any case, Braun already made it clear: If he were elected party leader of the CDU, then he would also have a "prominent role" ready for Merz.
This is what Braun announced in an interview with “Welt am Sonntag”.
The foreign politician Röttgen had instead announced that he would propose Franziska Hoppermann, member of the Bundestag, as the new CDU general secretary should he be elected.
There should also be an East German or an East German in the party leadership in the future.
Braun also wants all social currents to appear in the new party executive committee.
"I would like a comprehensive reform not only in terms of content, but also organizationally," he said in an interview.
The 49-year-old also announced that he wanted to modernize the CDU comprehensively: »I hope that we will return to the party's old strength.
For this, the CDU needs a fundamental new beginning.
I want to shape this new beginning. "
Braun should be nominated in the evening
Braun had presented the reasons for his application to the board of the Hessian state CDU on Friday.
He will then be officially nominated as a candidate by his home district association Gießen, where he will explain his reasons that evening.
Then he wants to inform all CDU members in writing.
In the accompanying letter he calls for a "fundamental new beginning."
Successful compromises in government were good for the country, but bad for the image of the Union.
"In the opposition we have to use the time intensively to sharpen the content-related profile of the CDU for our members and voters."
Braun wants to separate party and parliamentary group chairmanship in the future, he said in an interview with “Welt am Sonntag”.
"The task of today's chairman is to give space for many high-profile faces in the Union." He works excellently with Union parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus.
mfh / dpa
