The new Prime Minister of Hesse, Boris Rhein, now also leads the state association of the CDU.

The delegates at a party conference in Rotenburg an der Fulda elected him on Saturday with 97.6 percent of the votes.

The fifty-year-old lawyer from Frankfurt will succeed Volker Bouffier.

He resigned from the post of head of government after twelve years at the end of May.

A month later, the seventy-year-old did not run again as party leader.

Ewald Hetrodt

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung in Wiesbaden.

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Rhein described himself as a "representative of the next generation" and spoke of a "change in friendship and agreement".

Bouffier opened the way there in a joint process.

There is "no break, but a change of staff".

The transition was preceded by weeks of behind-the-scenes struggles for leadership of the CDU and the state at the beginning of the year.

Rhein swore the unity of the party.

With his election as chairman, the top candidate in the state elections in October of next year is connected.

The politician announced that he would "come to every corner of the country" in order to address people who had started to turn away from politics.

To do this, he wants to "use even more than before" the potential of the 35,000 party members.

Not only the CDU, but also the population should take part in a future congress organized by the Junge Union.

Rhein criticized the "disunity, indecision and inner turmoil" of the traffic light coalition in the federal government.

"This left-wing majority is not good for the country." Hesse must form a "bourgeois counter-power" under the leadership of the CDU.

It could remain a black-governed federal state "if we do it right".

Rhein wants the CDU to be a party of “compassionate conservatism”.

People should feel caring, closeness and solidarity.

In times of uncertainty, they expected an “agenda for a modern Hessen” from the Union.

Rhein reiterated the decision made in his government statement for the black-green coalition: "Climate protection is at the heart of our politics."

Anyone who wants to protect the children from the worst and want to give the younger generation their own creative freedom must "act now", says Rhein.

In doing so, however, politics must keep the balance between ecology and economy and take people with them.

"That sets us apart from the others."

Bouffier now honorary chairman

Former Chancellor and CDU Federal Chairwoman Angela Merkel thanked Bouffier in a video message.

for decades of "important support of my work".

Friedrich Merz, the current party leader and chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, came personally to the convention in Rotenburg an der Fulda in East Hesse.

He recalled that the CDU in Hesse, with Roland Koch as the leading candidate, had won the state elections in 1999 because, by rejecting the dual citizenship sought by the federal government, they had shown “the courage to engage in controversy”.

Turning to the future honorary chairman Bouffier, Merz thanked him for a “friendship that was resilient”.

He was alluding to the fact that after Merkel's withdrawal from the party leadership, Bouffier had tried several times to prevent Merz from becoming CDU chairman.

In the past, Bouffier and he "always agreed", Merz noted, "not always" in recent years, but "now again".

Everything Merz said was correct, Bouffier said afterwards.

And Merz laughed: "But you didn't like to hear it."