Saxony-Anhalt: Sepp Müller seeks CDU state chairmanship

Sepp Müller, a CDU member of Germany’s Bundestag who has faced public criticism from Chancellor Friedrich Merz, wants to lead the party in Saxony-Anhalt. He announced his candidacy after a meeting of the state executive in Magdeburg.

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If the polling results become election results, then Ulrich Siegmund and the AfD will have a mandate to form a government.

The state party plans to elect a new executive in full at a regional party conference in November or December, acting Minister-President Sven Schulze said. Schulze also repeated that the CDU no longer had a mandate to form a government after its clear defeat by the AfD and would move into opposition.

Müller had already caused discontent within the party before the state election. Citing polling figures, he said the AfD could receive the mandate to form a government if those figures translated into election results. “If the polling results become election results, then Ulrich Siegmund and the AfD will have a mandate to form a government,” Müller said on a Politico podcast three days before the vote.

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that no one among us understood how, just days before the election, a deputy leader of the parliamentary group could turn so sharply against his own lead candidate, continuing to do so from three days before the election until yesterday.

Merz later criticized Müller’s conduct without naming him. He said party officials had not understood why, just days before the election, a deputy leader of the CDU-CSU parliamentary group had undermined his party’s lead candidate. Parliamentary group leader Thorsten Frei called Müller’s remarks “highly problematic.” Müller is one of 11 deputy leaders of the group in the Bundestag.

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highly problematic