"Give me three minutes," says Volker Bouffier and interrupts the interview with the FAZ. The Prime Minister of Hesse leaves the conference room of the State Chancellery and comes back from his office with a piece of paper.

It documents the results of the elections for the federal executive committee of the CDU.

Bouffier has not been elected just one of the five vice-chairs.

With 88 percent, he also achieved the best result.

That was at the beginning of this year.

Ewald Hetrodt

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung in Wiesbaden.

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It went badly for the head of government and party.

He campaigned with all his might for Armin Laschet as candidate for chancellor and now has to be held responsible for his spectacular failure.

In addition, Bouffier did everything to prevent Friedrich Merz from becoming party leader.

But he will be officially chosen at a party congress in January.

A logical step

Bouffier, on the other hand, no longer takes up a realistic assessment of the situation for the office that he has held so proudly and with so much power. In the state board of his party, he announced this week that he could also serve on the presidium of the federal party as prime minister in future by virtue of office. This option provided for in the statutes was already open to him in the past, but he did not make use of it. Because the status of a deputy elected with a strong result means much more than just belonging to the party's presidium, which has 21 members, as an “advisory member”. Bouffier's waiver of his place in the closest leadership circle is a logical step on a retreat that can be followed in slow motion.

This also includes dealing with the request made by his party to finally say whether he also wants to lead the Hessian CDU into the next state election in autumn 2023. Because this is linked to the debate about possible successors, the state party registers with the greatest attention that Bouffier has now pushed through the candidacy of parliamentary group leader Ines Claus for the federal executive committee in its governing body.

This is seen as a skillful approach. Merz announced that he wanted to bring more women into leading positions. He could start by campaigning for women at the federal party congress - and, for example, advocating Claus. In this way, the Hessian state association would again advance into the leadership of the federal party "via the women's track". Whether the 41-year-old lawyer applies as deputy federal chairperson or only for the presidium depends on the specific personal constellation and the opportunities presented immediately before the party congress.

However, Claus is by no means unchallenged in Wiesbaden. After she entered the state parliament for the first time in 2019, Bouffier installed her as parliamentary group leader in April of last year. The election results showed that his recruiting for them was only successful to a limited extent. Without an opponent, Claus only got around 72 percent of the vote. When she was re-elected six weeks ago, she was unable to increase the approval rate, although many MPs had previously received a call from the party leadership in which Claus was again advertised.

He knew, of course, that his personal ideas for the election of the federal board would be interpreted with regard to the top candidacy, said Bouffier, according to participants in the state board. But he does not want to give "a hint". The personnel decisions at the federal level and the upcoming course setting in Hesse should be separated from each other. With this point of view, Bouffier obviously got through.

The nomination for the national executive would have been the ideal opportunity to present Claus as his preferred successor.

A clear vote by the Prime Minister would have guaranteed her an outstanding result at the federal party conference, which in turn would have had a positive effect on the debate in Wiesbaden.

But Bouffier let the opportunity slip by.

It could be that she is reluctant to go all out because of her three young children, it is said.

Wiesmann from Frankfurt as an assessor

Bouffier also failed to send a signal in favor of Interior Minister Peter Beuth. He has not only been a member of the federal executive committee for a long time, but is also chairman of the specialist committee for domestic affairs. Bouffier could also have sent him into the race for a place in the closest management circle in his place. Instead, he allowed the former member of the Bundestag Bettina Wiesmann from Frankfurt to act as an assessor. The Hessians can sing a song about the fact that too many candidates from a regional association take away votes from each other.

But Bouffier was not guided by such considerations.

It was important to him to get an unavoidable meeting of the state executive behind him without commenting specifically on his future as head of government and party.

When the leading representatives of the CDU meet in Künzell on February 18 for their traditional closed-door conference, it should only be that time.