Stephan Mayer becomes the new Secretary General of the CSU.

His party leader Markus Söder brought this news to the public in Munich on Wednesday - and it surprised his own people too.

On the one hand, because Mayer has been in the Bundestag since 2002.

The fateful election that is due for the CSU in 2023 is a state election, and the state parliament members actually prefer it if one of their own leads them into battle as a general.

Timo Frasch

Political correspondent in Munich.

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In addition, Mayer, 48 years old and in a relationship, is of a very handsome stature, according to Söder even two centimeters taller than him.

Judging by how much the CSU has talked about courting women in recent years, this will continue to give a fairly masculine picture at press conferences in the future.

In addition, Mayer had recently receded into the background under Seehofer.

Completely different from being the spokesman for domestic politics from 2013 to 2018: the lawyer made a name for himself as an undisputed expert with liberal-conservative positions, who was also valued by political opponents.

Reflection on familiar topics

There are indications that Söder could have imagined someone else as Secretary General.

On the other hand, the arguments that the CSU boss and his family put forward for Mayer on Wednesday also made sense: Mayer therefore has the potential to become one of the "local heroes" in his homeland of Upper Bavaria that Söder is looking for.

In any case, he achieved very good results as a directly elected member of parliament in his Altötting constituency.

He is expected to use his domestic political profile to satisfy the longing of many regular voters to reflect on familiar issues and to play in rural areas without coming across as provincial.

The fact that he is Catholic, in contrast to Söder and the previous Secretary General Markus Blume, who was also Protestant, also played a role in the overall assessment.

It was in the air that Blume would not continue: On the one hand, he had long been considered a "ministerial", on the other hand, many thought to the end that the Secretary General's battle dress never fitted him one hundred percent.

Söder did not want to risk putting a young talent in the post so close to a crucial election.

It had to be someone like Mayer, who has experience operating a larger apparatus and can compete on talk shows.

It was said that he was "very experienced in the media" and had defended his boss Seehofer in difficult situations.

The fact that he comes from Berlin is not a problem at all.

After all, successful general secretaries such as Alexander Dobrindt or Andreas Scheuer also operated from Berlin.