parties
Redmann elected at the head of the state CDU
Jan Redmann, parliamentary group leader of the Brandenburg CDU in the state parliament, recorded during a press conference. photo
© Soeren Stache/dpa
With a view to the state elections in 2024, the CDU Brandenburg has set the personnel course. Jan Redmann received a lot of support as the new man at the top. When it came to education policy, he also lashed out against his coalition partner, the SPD.
With a newly elected leadership, the CDU in Brandenburg is on course for the upcoming state elections next year. The 43-year-old lawyer Jan Redmann was elected the new state chairman and successor to Michael Stübgen in Potsdam on Saturday. He was the sole candidate and received 85.7 percent of the vote (including abstentions). “Yes, I’m really keen on getting success for the CDU Brandenburg with you,” said Redmann at the state party conference.
The change at the top of the party is of great importance: Redmann, who is already the leader of the state parliament, also wants to be the top candidate of the CDU for the state elections in 2024. “I want to continue writing Brandenburg’s success story.” Before the election, Redmann had already won a majority in a member survey. General Secretary Gordon Hoffmann was re-elected on Saturday with more than 90 percent approval.
Redmann wants to spark a new “we feeling” in the state CDU, which used to be partly crushed by internal quarrels. North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU), who gave a speech at the party conference, also wrote on Twitter: “He brings people together instead of polarizing. That’s what this time needs!” Twenty years ago, Wüst and Redmann shared a flat in Brussels and are friends.
In Potsdam, Wüst primarily criticized the fact that quarrels in the federal government were paralyzing politicians in their search for solutions. “It’s not progressing because this federal government is not a federal government, but a non-governmental organization that is in constant dispute,” he said. “People are just annoyed.” Also in view of the discussion about a ban on oil and gas heating, he said: “You can’t run a country like that, it makes people mad.”
Stübgen (63), who is the interior minister in Brandenburg, received a lot of applause from the delegates at the party congress for leading the CDU through difficult times. He was re-elected state chairman in 2021 with 74.0 percent of the votes, but has now withdrawn from the state chairmanship.
In his speech, Redmann sharply criticized the SPD education policy in particular. “We send our children with deficits in education into working life.” He called the SPD’s long-standing education policy a “shattered pile”, which includes the lack of teachers and educators. It is a scandal that is happening in too many classrooms in Brandenburg. Not enough teachers are being trained, and digitization in schools must progress.
As a clear dig at Education Minister Britta Ernst (SPD), he said: “The question of coaching has long been there.” Redmann announced that the CDU wanted to work more intensively on education policy in the future. The Ministry of Education will probably not be able to hire enough new teachers in the coming school year. Minister Ernst announced that she would therefore cut back on additional courses. At the same time, the capacity for teacher training will be expanded with a new location in Senftenberg.
In the red-black-green government coalition in Brandenburg, things are crunching in some places in the year before the state elections. “I hope that Jan Redmann will end the election campaign mode after his election as party chairman and lead the CDU back to constructive cooperation,” Green Party leader Petra Budke said.
Redmann criticized the federal government for its debates about phasing out coal, nuclear power, gas and oil heating and combustion engines. “Germany has gone from being the export world champion to the exit world champion.” However, the climate cannot be saved with wishful thinking, said Redmann. He also spoke out in favor of consistent returns in asylum policy. “We can’t take in those who don’t need our help here.”
