Germany's ailing Free Democratic Party (FDP) on Saturday picked the 74-year-old Wolfgang Kubicki as its new leader, as the pro-business party seeks to recover from a historic run of election defeats.
The veteran politician prevailed over MEP Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann in a vote at the party conference in Berlin, earning 390 votes to her 259.
Kubicki is now tasked with achieving what the previous party chairman, Christian Dürr, failed to do since his election a year ago: to lead the FDP out of its growing irrelevance and restore it to a position as a serious political force.
Long a kingmaker in German politics as a coalition partner for either the conservative bloc or the centre-left Social Democrats, the FDP has seen its support plunge since the collapse of former chancellor Olaf Scholz's government in late 2024.
Dürr took the helm of the party following its failure to clear the 5% threshold needed to win seats in the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament, in the February 2025 election.
However, he was unable to turn the tide. This year, the FDP has suffered further setbacks in state elections in Baden-Württemberg (4.4%) and Rhineland-Palatinate (2.1%), failing to win any seats in either regional parliament.
As a result, the entire party leadership resigned.
The new team under Kubicki has been elected for just one year. He will face his first test as early as September, when new state parliaments will be elected in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin.
In all three states, the FDP currently stands at under 5% in the opinion polls.
