With Dennis Thering as the new state chairman, the CDU Hamburg is going into the European, district assembly and citizenship elections for the next two years. A party conference elected the 38-year-old on Monday evening as the successor to Bundestag member Christoph Ploß, who had previously cleared the way to the party leadership with his resignation. There was no opposing candidate.
Thering has been chairman of the CDU parliamentary group in the Hamburg Parliament for three years. In the election for party leader, he received 185 out of 197 valid votes cast. 8 delegates voted against him, 4 abstained – which corresponds to an approval of almost 93.9 percent. The CDU, which does not take abstentions into account when calculating approval, even gave the figure as 95.9 percent.
With the bundling of offices, the Hamburg CDU wants to position itself before the European and district assembly elections in the coming year and the citizenship elections in 2025. Ploß had Thering, who also wants to compete as a top candidate in the state elections, proposed the procedure according to his own statements.
Most recently, the CDU in Hamburg suffered serious defeats in elections and, with 11.2 percent, achieved its worst historical result in the 2020 state election.
Thering promised to bring the party back to success. With him as parliamentary group and state chairman, the CDU is more powerful and campaignable. “I’m competing to win,” he said. He wants to make the 2025 state election a “three-way battle” on an equal footing with the SPD and the Greens and offer the people of Hamburg “a real alternative to this red-green botch”.
Unlike Mayor Peter Tschentscher from the SPD, he was also born in the Hanseatic city, Thering said. “I know Hamburg better than Bremen and I’m definitely not a Werder fan.”
Most recently, a survey commissioned by “Zeit” saw the CDU in Hamburg at “around 20 percent” in October last year, said Thering. “If we look at the starting position of 11.2 percent, that’s a really cool result.” Statements on possible coalitions are not to be expected from him before the elections. “The CDU is not fighting for any alliance,” said Thering. “Pure CDU, you can rely on that.”
The party owes a great debt of gratitude to his predecessor Christoph Ploß, who took over the state presidency after the defeat in the 2020 general election.
Ploß sees the party on the way up in view of the poll numbers. “We have also managed to get a winning mentality back into the Hamburg CDU,” he said in his farewell speech. That’s why “now is the right time to put it in the hands of Dennis Thering”.
His successor is characterized by a “great character”, modesty and 100 percent commitment. Thering has everything that “should distinguish a future mayor, a top politician in our city,” said Ploß.
As CDU district chairman in Hamburg-Nord and chairman of the CDU regional group in the Bundestag, he will “continue to serve the cause and do everything to ensure that we are successful,” said Ploß. The party congress thanked him with long standing ovations.
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