She called for a women's quota: bitter defeat in the election - Widmann-Mauz no longer in the CDU presidium

Created: 2022-01-23 13:22

By: Astrid Theil

Annette Widmann-Mauz (CDU) did not make it into the party executive committee at the CDU party conference.

© Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters/Pool/dpa

The CDU reorganized itself at its party conference.

Friedrich Merz was elected party chairman with a large majority.

Two top women went surprisingly empty-handed.

Berlin – The CDU reassigned its top posts on Saturday (January 23). On the one hand, the CDU delegates elected Friedrich Merz as party chairman with a large majority. On the other hand, a new Secretary General was elected: Maro Czaja, for whom Friedrich Merz had campaigned, received 93 percent of the votes. Czaja was Berlin's Senator for Social Affairs and emphasized social issues in his application speech. He named pensions, child poverty, housing shortages and health care in rural areas as key issues and called on the CDU to realign.

According to Merz, member of the Bundestag Christian Stumpp is to become Deputy Secretary General and thus fill a position that has not previously existed.

This must first be decided by changing the statutes at a face-to-face party conference.

The deputy chairmen were also newly elected at the digital party conference.

The Prime Minister of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, received the best result.

New CDU Presidium: Ex-Health Minister Spahn is narrowly re-elected

There were also changes in the CDU presidium, which is made up of the party leadership and seven other members.

Eight women and men ran for the seven posts in the party presidium.

Four party members were re-elected: Saxony-Anhalt's Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff, Lower Saxony's Economics Minister Bernd Althusmann, NRW Labor and Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann and ex-Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn.

The former health minister received only 60 percent of the votes, the worst result in the presidential election.

In addition to the already known members of the Executive Committee, a number of new members were also elected: NRW Building Minister Ina Scharrenbach, the Hessian CDU parliamentary group leader Ines Claus and the only 32-year-old member of the Bundestag Ronja Kemmer.

CDU party conference: Two top women fail in the elections

However, the chair of the Women's Union, Anette Widmann-Mauz, was not re-elected to the party's inner circle of leaders.

She received only 434 of the required 478 delegate votes.

The politician has been a member of the CDU presidium since 2018 and campaigned above all for a 50 percent quota for women in party offices, which she met with a lot of resistance within the CDU.

The CDU top woman Anja Karlicek also had to record a defeat at the party conference.

The former Federal Minister of Education and Research was not elected to the CDU federal executive board.

At the party congress, 26 federal board positions were awarded, for which 39 members had applied.

Fifteen men and eleven women were selected for the posts.