Bremen CDU picks Wiebke Winter to challenge eight decades of SPD rule in 2027 state vote
The 30-year-old lawyer and state parliamentary leader secured 92 percent of the vote at a Saturday party conference, pledging to become Bremen's first female premier.
The nomination
On Saturday, the CDU in Bremen chose Wiebke Winter as its lead candidate for next spring's Bürgerschaft election, awarding her around 92 percent of delegate votes. The 30-year-old lawyer has led the CDU parliamentary group for a year and also sits on the party's federal executive board. She co-founded the Klimaunion, a climate-focused network inside the CDU. Born in Kiel and raised in Bremen, Winter entered the state parliament three years ago.
The platform
Winter told delegates she had witnessed too little courage to act in Bremen. She described the city-state as having Germany's highest poverty and unemployment rates and the last place in education rankings.
I am standing here because I have seen too often in Bremen that the courage was missing to get started.
I no longer want to accept that.
She pledged to campaign on safety, digitalisation, less bureaucracy and reliable childcare. Cooperation with the far-right AfD was explicitly ruled out.
An eight-decade hold
No party other than the SPD has supplied Bremen's mayor since the end of the Second World War. The current red-green-red coalition under Andreas Bovenschulte is defending that streak. A CDU victory would be a political turning point in Germany's smallest federal state.
The numbers
An Infratest dimap poll for the Weser-Kurier in March showed the CDU narrowly ahead of the Social Democrats. The election is due next spring.
Reactions
Hendrik Wüst, the CDU premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, attended the party conference as guest of honour and congratulated Winter immediately.
Wiebke Winter and the whole Bremen CDU radiate what we lack too often in Germany: optimism.
