Germany’s ailing Free Democrats pick 74-year-old leader

Germany’s troubled Free Democratic Party has named 74-year-old Wolfgang Kubicki as its new leader, as the pro-business party tries to recover from a series of election defeats.

The veteran politician defeated MEP Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann in the voting held at the party conference in Berlin, receiving 390 votes to 259.

Kubicki’s task is to achieve what the previous party leader, Christian Dürr, has failed to do since his election a year ago: to rescue the FDP from its growing irrelevance and return it to a position of serious political force.

Support for the FDP, long a kingmaker in German politics as a coalition partner of the conservative bloc or Social Democrats, has waned since the collapse of former chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government in late 2024.

Dürr became head of the classical liberal party after it failed to pass the five percent threshold required to win seats in Germany’s lower parliament, the Bundestag, in the February 2025 general election.

But he failed to turn the tide.

This year the FDP suffered further defeats in the state elections of Baden-Württemberg (4.4%) and Rhineland-Palatinate (2.1%) and failed to win seats in either regional parliament.

As a result, the entire party leadership resigned.

The new team under Kubicki was chosen for only one year.

It will take its first test in early September, when new state parliaments will be elected in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin.

In all three states, the FDP currently remains below five percent in opinion polls.