The North Rhine-Westphalian Transport Minister Hendrik Wüst was elected as the new chairman of the state CDU on Saturday afternoon at a party conference in Bielefeld.

Wüst, who received 98.3 percent of the vote, succeeds Armin Laschet, who moves to the Bundestag after his defeat as the Union's candidate for chancellor.

Laschet should also follow Wüst in the Prime Minister's office on Wednesday.

The CDU and FDP, which have ruled North Rhine-Westphalia together since 2017, have a wafer-thin majority of 100 to 99 mandates in the state parliament.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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The next state election in NRW will take place on May 15 next year, which is why Wüst announced the start of the CDU campaign for next week in his Bielefeld application speech: “I want to get started.” His campaign will have the motto “You count”.

The CDU must take more care of people's everyday concerns.

it will only remain a people's party if it has clear, recognizable answers to these concerns.

Everyone in North Rhine-Westphalia should be heard with their worries and needs.

The state CDU will remain “down to earth and open”, but also remain self-critical.

"We have to stay open and put out our feelers."

The 46-year-old Wüst had an economically liberal-conservative profile for a long time, and since his appointment to the state cabinet in the summer of 2017, he has been trying hard to establish contacts with all movements in the party.

In Bielefeld, Wüst supported the concept of the “People's Party of the Middle”.

In the federal election at the end of September, the Union lost more than two million voters from the center to the SPD and the Greens.

"That's exactly what I'm going to be about in the next few months."

Laschet "held the ends together"

Wüst recalled that the first freely elected Prime Minister Karl Arnold (CDU) described North Rhine-Westphalia more than 70 years ago as the “social conscience” of the Federal Republic. “It has to stay that way.” Compared to the federal party, the state CDU has the advantage of being united and strong. Laschet owes much to this as well as the trusting government work with the FDP. Laschet "held the ends together" in Düsseldorf. Wüst made it clear that he wants to continue Laschet's course of gathering representatives of all CDU currents at the cabinet table.

In the state election campaign, Wüst hopes to score points not only with his own future program, but also with the results of his predecessor. Whether in terms of economic growth, internal security or transport policy - North Rhine-Westphalia has made great progress in just over four years under a CDU-led government. "We want to continue on this path: We want to be at the top."

The 660 delegates celebrated Laschet even longer than Wüst with standing ovations.

In his farewell speech, he recalled that the largest regional association of the CDU had paralyzed itself for years before 2012 due to ongoing conflicts.

"The North Rhine-Westphalian CDU must never again be at odds." The party must continue to stand together as in the past few days, Laschet said, alluding to the fact that he had also managed to gather the last internal skeptics behind Wüst.

The “social heart” belongs to the CDU

In his last speech as state chairman, Laschet warned the CDU against falling into populism or resentment. "Preserve the power of integration: young and old, city and country, with and without a migration background," the outgoing Prime Minister called out to the delegates. The CDU did not lose the election “because we were not conservative enough”. The “social heart” and the “view of the common people” were part of the core brand of the CDU, both in the federal government and in the state - “not just business”. After the debacle in the state elections in 2012, the North Rhine-Westphalian CDU ordered a phase of self-reassurance and thus laid the foundation for resurgence. Laschet has something similar in mind in Berlin. As in Düsseldorf, he wants to act as a moderator to help find a new CDU federal chairman.

For one or the other aspirant he had unmistakable advice in Bielefeld. "If you have lost an election, it is good if you do not make a huge drama," shouted the outgoing Prime Minister in Bielefeld. He is surprised that some interested parties for the CDU federal chairmanship are now talking about "the greatest crisis of the CDU since 1945". That is "complete nonsense" and will not inspire any voter to re-elect the CDU. "The party donation affair in 2000 was in doubt a bigger one for the CDU" than the fact that the Union was now just behind the SPD. "So leave cups in the cupboard, approach things realistically," warned Laschet and received applause from the scene. Previously, Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn had expressed himself accordingly in the “Interview of the Week” on Deutschlandfunk.And a week ago - at the Germany Day of Young People in Union - Friedrich Merz described his party as a "serious restructuring case at risk of insolvency".