Merz defends demo in Erding
Greens fail with a call for Aiwanger’s dismissal
06/15/2023 12:29 am
After the appearance of the Bavarian Economics Minister at a demonstration in Erding, the Greens were up in arms: they accused the Aiwanger of undemocratic lapses and demanded his dismissal. But the application fails – and CDU leader Merz defends the event.
After the controversial statements made by Bavaria’s Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger at a rally, the CSU and Free Voters rejected the opposition’s demand for his dismissal. On Wednesday evening, the coalition factions voted unanimously against a motion by the Greens in the state parliament, with which they had demanded Aiwanger’s expulsion – because of “blunders that are incompatible with democratic principles”.
The Free Voter politician Aiwanger said at the rally on Saturday against the federal government’s heating law in front of 13,000 people that people had to “take back democracy”. He was sharply criticized across parties for this sentence, which was reminiscent of the well-known AfD choice of words. The CSU had also reprimanded Aiwanger, publicly and internally in a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. In the state parliament, however, the coalition factions were now close together again. Both want to continue their alliance after the October 8 election.
Free voters reject criticism
Aiwanger had not crossed a red line for the first time, Green politician Thomas Gehring had argued earlier in the debate. The statement by the Free Voters chief was “deeply wrong and undemocratic” – and Aiwanger has still not apologized for it. The parliamentary manager of the Free Voters, Fabian Mehring, defended Aiwanger: The criticism was a “storm in a teacup”, a “political show” to distract from one’s own failure.
There had already been a heated argument and turbulent war of words in the state parliament during a debate lasting several hours about a government statement by Aiwanger in the afternoon. Aiwanger did not repeat his much criticized sentence. But he also did not respond to the broad criticism of it, including from his own coalition partner, the CSU.
Merz defends demonstration in Erding
Meanwhile, CDU leader Friedrich Merz described the demonstration in Erding as an “outcry from German medium-sized companies”. He pointed out that an optician had initiated the rally. And you have to take it seriously if medium-sized companies are afraid for their own future, said Merz on Wednesday evening at a newspaper publishers’ congress in Berlin.
Merz added that he “accompanied it with discomfort” that the demonstration “was suddenly pushed back into a corner, with lateral thinkers and right-wing and AfD-close and so on”. Merz said nothing about Aiwanger’s controversial statements at this rally.