365 days ago, the Chancellor was still called Angela Merkel (CDU).

The idea of ​​her still in office today is eerie in view of the war against Ukraine.

This year, the CDU in Hesse benefited from the fact that changing top personnel is part of the essence of democracy.

After some hesitation, the state chairman and Prime Minister Volker Bouffier, a long-time ally of the former Chancellor, finally complied with the prevailing wish in the Union and vacated his place at the head of the state and party.

In July, the CDU elected him honorary chairman and Boris Rhein his successor.

But the harmony on display was not limitless.

This was reflected in the election of the other members of the Executive Board.

When members of the cabinet stand up, it is considered a formality that they are elected by a safe majority.

This time, however, the Digital Minister Kristina Sinemus had a completely different experience.

That the delegates failed the politician discovered and promoted by Bouffier with one of the worst results of all in the election of assessors was the final emancipation of the party from its longtime leader.

Forced handover

The fact that Sinemus retained her position in the cabinet was due to Rhein's promise to make his team "younger, more colorful and more female".

It did not fit that Minister of Justice Eva Kühne-Hörmann was replaced.

Rhein would have lost all credibility if he had banned Sinemus, the second woman from the cabinet.

All in all, the forced handover of the baton from Bouffier to Rhein was so orderly that it even inspired respect from the Social Democrats, especially as the clarification of who will lead the SPD in next autumn's elections is taking a long time.

After all, everything now seems to be heading towards the candidacy of state chairwoman and federal interior minister Nancy Faeser.

The Greens, who committed themselves to Al-Wazir in June, assessed the personnel decision-making process in the CDU very differently from the Social Democrats.

Group leader Mathias Wagner complained that the way the discussion was conducted had “something disrespectful” about the office and about Bouffier personally.

Discussions like those that took place in the CDU at the beginning of the year are among the natural and beneficial manifestations of democracy.

And in reality, the Greens weren't worried about the government office or Bouffier, only about themselves. They didn't like the development that was emerging.

Nobody else in the CDU was as sympathetic to the Greens as Bouffier.

They also wanted him as the next top candidate for the CDU.

He would have gone into the election at the age of 71.

His candidacy would have offered Al-Wazir, who was twenty years his junior, the unique opportunity to reach the top post as long-serving deputy prime minister – as an almost equally experienced, but also modern and green version of the old carter.

The fact that the Union was able to prevent this competition, which was virtually hopeless for it, is the decisive political course of the year.

The change of power initially affects only the CDU and the State Chancellery.

In the state elections in October 2023, the cards will be completely reshuffled.

It is in the interests of both sides that the governing coalition hold out until then.