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Jens Spahn almost failed in the election to the CDU presidium
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
The CDU elected a new executive committee at its digital party conference.
There were eight applications for the seven positions to be filled – the head of the Frauen Union, Annette Widmann-Mauz, failed with her application.
She got the fewest votes with 434 (45.45 percent).
Karl-Josef Laumann received the greatest approval with almost 84 percent (799 votes).
Jens Spahn ended up in seventh place - and just barely in the presidency.
575 of the delegates voted for him;
this corresponds to an approval of 60.21 percent.
The new party leader Merz had previously expressly requested a candidacy from the youth party of the Junge Union.
Ronja Kemmer moved into the committee for this.
Bernd Althusmann, Ines Claus, Reiner Haseloff and Ines Scharrenbach were also elected.
Klöckner new Federal Treasurer
Julia Klöckner was previously elected as the only candidate for the post of Federal Treasurer with an approval of almost 72 percent.
Klöckner is thus also a member of the federal executive board.
At noon, Friedrich Merz had already been elected as the new party leader and Mario Czaja as general secretary.
Carsten Linnemann, Andreas Jung, Michael Kretschmer, Karin Prien and Silvia Breher are the deputy party chairmen.
Merz received an approval of 94.62 percent.
Formally, however, he is not yet in office: the digital election of the delegates must be confirmed in writing, the counting of the votes should take place on January 31st.
As in the previous year, the event took place digitally due to the pandemic.
For Merz it was the third attempt to become head of the Christian Democrats.
Last year he lost the election against Armin Laschet, in 2018 he lost to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.
There was no opponent this time.
Merz succeeds Armin Laschet as chairman, who only held the office for one year.
He ran as the Union's candidate for Chancellor in the Bundestag elections and announced his withdrawal from the party leadership after the historically poor performance of the CDU and CSU.
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