After a crash in the state election
Stephan Toscani is to lead Saar-CDU
05/17/2022 01:49 am
After the crushing defeat in the state elections in Saarland at the end of March, the head of the Saar CDU, Tobias Hans, took the consequences and announced his resignation. He is now to be followed by Stephan Toscani – one of the most experienced politicians in the state.
Stephan Toscani is to become the new chairman of the CDU in Saarland. The state board of the CDU Saar unanimously nominated the 55-year-old for the office, as the party announced. The lawyer could be elected on May 28 at a state party conference in Eppelborn as the successor to party leader Tobias Hans. After the crushing defeat of the CDU in the state elections on March 27, Hans had announced that he would give up the party leadership.
Toscani is one of the most experienced politicians in the state. The Saarlander, who joined the CDU at the age of 15, has been President of the State Parliament since 2018. Previously, he was Saarland Minister responsible for Europe, temporarily also for interior, finance and justice. He was elected to the state parliament for the first time in 1999. He has also been deputy state chairman of the Saarland CDU since 2011. Franco-German relations are a matter close to his heart.
Hans took over the state presidency of the CDU in October 2018. He was Prime Minister of Saarland from March 2018 to April of this year. After the big losses in the state elections at the end of March, the CDU is back in the opposition for the first time in 23 years. In the state elections on March 27, the SPD led by the new Prime Minister Anke Rehlinger won an absolute majority with 43.5 percent of the votes. She is leading the government in the Saar for the first time in 23 years. The CDU lost 28.5 percent by a huge margin.
The party also announced that Toscani had proposed Frank Wagner, the previous education policy spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group in the state parliament, as Secretary General. In addition, there will be a deputy general secretary in the future. Toscani suggested the district chair of the JU Saarbrücken-Land, Carolin Mathieu, for this, it said in the evening.