Bremen is considered an SPD stronghold. The CDU wants to change that in the next general election – and will choose Frank Imhoff as their top candidate. But the polls for the SPD do not look bad.
The Bremen CDU has officially elected the president of the parliament, Frank Imhoff, as their top candidate for the general election next year.
The 53-year-old self-employed farmer received 100 percent of the votes at a party conference in Bremen on Saturday. 183 delegates were entitled to vote. Imhoff has been a member of the Bremen Parliament since 1999 and its President since July 2019.
In the coming year, the CDU politician is to conquer the town hall for the CDU for the first time since the founding of the federal state of Bremen. In the 2019 state election, the CDU was the strongest force ahead of the SPD for the first time. The SPD was only able to stay in government through a coalition with the Greens and the Left Party.
From Imhoff’s point of view, after decades of SPD dominance, the time is ripe for a change in leadership in Bremen City Hall: “Democracy thrives on change. The change has also been good for other federal states, and we as the CDU can do it.” CDU country chief Carsten Meyer-Heder was confirmed in office by the delegates on Saturday. The entrepreneur received 89.3 percent of the votes.
According to a survey by the opinion research institute Infratest Dimap for the “Weser-Kurier” on Thursday, the SPD can hope to become the strongest force again in May 2023, one year before the general election. The Social Democrats are currently well ahead of the CDU (22 percent) and the Greens (21 percent) with 30 percent. The left would get eight percent, the FDP and AfD six percent each.
