Saxony-Anhalt: Who is Sepp Müller?

Sepp Müller wants to lead Saxony-Anhalt’s CDU after the party’s support dropped to 17.2% in the state election. “I am running for state chairman,” the 37-year-old Bundestag member said, positioning himself as a possible successor to outgoing Minister-President and state party leader Sven Schulze.

Müller had already caused controversy before the election. He said that if polling results became election results, AfD politician Ulrich Siegmund would have a mandate to form a government with the AfD. Chancellor Friedrich Merz later publicly reprimanded him, without naming him directly, saying it was unacceptable for a deputy leader of the CDU parliamentary group to undermine his party’s lead candidate days before the vote.

“

I am running for state chairman.

Müller has served in the Bundestag since 2017 and won the Dessau-Wittenberg direct mandate again four years later. In that election, 34.3% of voters backed the trained banker from Gräfenhainichen, the CDU’s strongest first-vote result in eastern Germany. He later became deputy leader of the Union parliamentary group.

“

If the polling results become election results, then Ulrich Siegmund with the AfD has a mandate to form a government.

Before the 2025 federal election, Müller became the CDU’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt. His internal standing was less clear: he secured about 81% support, a result presented as limited for a leading candidate. Müller is the father of a son and is married to Bundestag member Wolfgang Stefinger of the CSU.

Müller and Schulze are not regarded as close party allies. Many CDU members were angered by Müller’s pre-election comments, but he remains focused on what he sees as the danger of the CDU moving further left. He is sharply critical of the former East German SED regime and Die Linke. In 2025, he also expressed dissatisfaction with the CDU-led coalition’s work and pointed to the difficult situation in eastern Germany. “The realization that we as the civic center are falling apart if we continue as before, this realization is already five years further advanced in the east,” he said.

“

The realization that we as the civic center are falling apart if we continue as before, this realization is already five years further advanced in the east.