Dhe CDU in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is facing a new beginning. The previous general secretary of the state party, Daniel Peters, wants to lead it in the future. There is currently no opposing candidate for the state party conference on April 13th, Peter's election is considered certain. Bundestag member Philipp Amthor is to become the new general secretary of the state CDU. Peters announced on Wednesday in Schwerin that he would propose Amthor for the office.
The CDU in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania will have its fourth chairman in just around four years. The previous party and parliamentary group leader Franz-Robert Liskow announced his withdrawal in January. Many in the party considered him insufficiently noticeable.
Liskow took over the parliamentary group chairmanship after the state elections in September 2021. In the election, the CDU in MV was only the third strongest force behind the SPD and AfD with 13.3 percent; it was its worst result in history. The CDU, which only has just under 4,500 members in the country, is now in surveys with 18 percent, not far behind Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig's SPD (21 percent), but the AfD is well ahead with around 31 percent.
Many lose their protection status
The 42-year-old Peters is considered a hardliner, especially on migration issues. In February, for example, he told the FAZ that we should learn from Denmark when it comes to migration. This is also taking a very tough course against refugees, with many Syrians there currently losing their protection status. Islamic parallel societies that have emerged in Germany, which “sometimes spread anti-Semitism uninhibitedly without being seriously disturbed, clearly show that some problems were deliberately ignored,” Peters told the FAZ at the time. And: The influx from Islamic societies depends “strongly with our very generous welfare state and also with the fact that deportations only succeed in exceptional cases. Both are often politically denied or ignored.”
After Liskow announced his withdrawal, Amthor was initially considered a possible successor. But the thirty-one-year-old from Ueckermünde rejected this on the grounds that he currently sees his political place in federal politics. Amthor then announced to the “Nordkurier” that he wanted to run for the federal executive board for the first time at the CDU federal party conference in May. His candidacy for the position of state secretary general is therefore surprising.
Amthor wanted to run for the office of CDU state chairman in 2020, but withdrew his candidacy as a result of the affair surrounding his part-time job at an IT company, for which he had also lobbied on Bundestag stationery.