You just have to score this goal.

The former handball player Hendrik Wüst is clearly aware of this this Friday at the beginning of January.

The 46-year-old CDU politician has only been prime minister of North Rhine-Westphalia since the fall.

It is a wonderful coincidence that he inherited the chair of the Prime Ministers' Conference, which alternated between the countries, from his predecessor, the hapless Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet.

Since the committee has to constantly coordinate with the federal government in times of a pandemic, Wüst regularly has the opportunity to appear in front of the media in Berlin with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The nationwide attention is invaluable for Wüst to quickly gain a profile for the state election campaign – and now and then to dare a counterattack.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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Like this time.

Scholz is again giving one of his monotonous, almost soundless, long lectures.

Wüst's terse words that follow are a pleasant contrast.

The Westphalian Wüst, who - unlike the sometimes erratic Rhinelander Laschet - does not like to leave things to chance and wants to be exactly prepared right down to the choice of his words, reminds us that Scholz held out the prospect of general vaccination in November, "and with time perspective beginning of February".

Wüst then proceeded to attack in a factual and friendly manner: “We need speed and leadership on this question.”

On the open stage, the new prime minister portrays the new chancellor as weak in leadership.

"There must not be the feeling that this question is being used to fight the pandemic." That is also quite daring because it distracts from the fact that the CDU and CSU are at least as divided on the vaccination issue as the traffic light parties.

A defeat would be a disaster for Wüst

Elections will be held in North Rhine-Westphalia on May 15th.

If the CDU's polls remain as moderate as they have been recently, Wüst would be the prime minister with the shortest term in office in the history of the most populous federal state.

It would be a personal disaster for Wüst and a disaster for his party.

If the CDU loses the most important election of the year, then it will also get into a whirlwind of marginalization in the federal government.

Conversely, if Wüst wins, then he not only has a government mandate in Düsseldorf that he fought for himself, but is definitely one of the most powerful figures in the Union.

And it would not be long before the first party friend wanted Wüst and not the CDU chairman Friedrich Merz, who was twenty years his senior, as chancellor candidate for the 2025 federal election.

That would go well with someone whose CV reads as planned at first glance: at 15 at home in Rhede with friends revived the Junge Union, at 20 on the city council, at 25 North Rhine-Westphalian JU boss, at 28 fully qualified lawyers, with 30 youngest member of the state parliament, at 31 general secretary of the CDU in the state, at 35 managing director of the North Rhine-Westphalian newspaper publishers association, at 42 transport minister, at 46 prime minister.

There seems to be only one direction for Wüst: upwards.

But that is deceptive, there were setbacks, blows of fate, wrong turns, beautiful coincidences and one or the other astonishing coincidence.