After the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt: The left-wing eater from the Bundestag

On Sunday evening, a tall man walks through the large hall in the Hotel Maritim in Magdeburg. He shakes hands, pats shoulders, speaks here and there. Journalists are greeted warmly, but then turned away: “I’m not going to say anything now.” The CDU Saxony-Anhalt has just achieved a disastrously poor result with 17 percent, the AfD is close to the state chancellery. The mood at the CDU election party is desperate.

Sepp Müller, that tall man, could now remain silent, like many from the Saxony-Anhalt CDU that evening. At some point he stands in front of a TV camera and says: “It can't be 'business as usual'.” It is now clear at the latest: someone is positioning himself as the successor to Sven Schulze, the Prime Minister and failed CDU top candidate. He was never Müller's best party friend anyway.

And that's how it happens. As soon as the CDU leadership decides to re-elect the entire state executive board on Monday, Müller throws his hat into the ring for the state chairmanship.

Müller, 37 years old and a trained banker, is a member of the board of the social wing of the state CDU and deputy chairman of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag. He won this position in a competitive vote; the so-called carpet dealers in the group had actually agreed on a different candidate.

Müller, you could probably say, is an avowed Leftist eater. When Gregor Gysi opened the inaugural session of the Bundestag in 2025 as senior president, he demonstratively leafed through the book “The Perpetrators Are Among Us” by Hubertus Knabe - of course in such a way that it was easy to capture for the cameras. Müller, who was born shortly before reunification, no longer consciously experienced the GDR and the SED regime. Nevertheless, he still sees the Left as the successor party to the SED.

Müller also emphasized on Monday evening that he strictly rejects cooperation with the “extreme left” and “the extreme right”. The fact that he is trivializing the AfD and depriving the CDU of any power option does not bother him: “Anyone who is open to all sides is not completely closed.” The CDU needs to regain credibility; loyalty to principles is required.

In the days before the election, Müller had caused a furor and displeasure in parts of his party with two things: "If the survey results become election results, then Ulrich Siegmund has a mandate to form a government with the AfD," he said - and at the same time made it clear that there should under no circumstances be any cooperation with the Left Party, no matter how cautious. If you follow this, the CDU would no longer have had any option for power before the election.

Although he spoke from the hearts of many in the regional association, he really stabbed his own top candidate in the back. A gross foul, just a few days before the state elections. In parts of the regional association, people don't speak well of Müller. The Chancellor also criticized him sharply on Monday, without mentioning his name.

Müller is married to his CSU parliamentary group colleague Wolfgang Stefinger; the two are the first openly gay married couple in the Bundestag. He has been a member of parliament here since 2017, he won the direct mandate in the Dessau-Wittenberg constituency twice, and he achieved the CDU's best first vote result in the east. But in 2025 he lost the direct mandate to the AfD. At that time, he was only nominated by his party with only 81 percent, despite his previous successes. Müller was already controversial back then. His behavior before the election didn't make things any better. A counter-candidacy is expected in the regional association.