Overview
- Heinrich announced she will resign her CDU membership at the end of the year, a decision conveyed in a letter to the Elbe‑Elster district association and subsequent interviews.
- Her break with the party centers on the planned hospital fusion in Elbe‑Elster, which she says the CDU-led county backs despite petitions opposing the closure of Elsterwerda’s facility.
- County leader and Landrat Christian Jaschinski is reported to support closing the Elsterwerda hospital in favor of a new build elsewhere, a stance Heinrich rejects as “politics against the citizens.”
- She was reelected mayor on Sunday with 79.2 percent against AfD candidate Andreas Kerstan and says she waited until after the vote to announce her decision to avoid charges of populism.
- Her departure means there will be no CDU-affiliated mayors left in the Elbe‑Elster district, following earlier exits such as Finsterwalde’s Jörg Gampe, and she also faults the federal CDU under Friedrich Merz for broken campaign promises and debt policy.