“Somewhat simple”
CSU vice-president Weber criticizes Hubert Aiwanger
September 9, 2023, 3:56 a.m
While Markus Söder once again committed himself to the Free Voters and their leader Hubert Aiwanger, CSU vice-president Manfred Weber was critical of his handling of the leaflet affair. However, one thing is certain for the state leader: he wants to continue to form a coalition with the Aiwanger party – and not with the Greens.
In the leaflet affair involving the chairman of the Free Voters, Hubert Aiwanger, the CSU vice-chairman Manfred Weber warned against trivialization. Weber told the Tagesspiegel that he had a hard time “in view of the most serious crimes committed by Nazi Germany with the concept of ‘youthful sin’.” Aiwanger made things “a bit easy” for himself with his argument, criticized Weber. “I’m the same age as him, he comes directly from my neighboring community. For me, the admiration for Sophie Scholl and her resistance against the Nazis was formative – that was also exemplified at my school,” said the CSU vice-president, who comes from Lower Bavaria, in explanation .
Four weeks before the state elections in Bavaria, Prime Minister Markus Söder once again categorically rejected a possible coalition with the Greens and committed himself to the Free Voters and Hubert Aiwanger. “We say very clearly: We definitely don’t want black-green,” said Söder on ZDF’s “heute journal”. He guarantees this “very personally”. With its rejection of the black-green coalition, the CSU wanted to “show a clear distance from the traffic lights”. The traffic light government made up of the SPD, FDP and Greens has “lost all connection with the population,” said the CSU leader. There were already discussions with the Greens during the last state election, but they showed: “There is no reliable basis.” This has “deepened”.
Instead, the CSU politician committed to continuing his coalition with the Free Voters. He continues to rely on cooperation with the party of Deputy Prime Minister Hubert Aiwanger, even if his affair over an anti-Semitic leaflet was a “burden” and “challenged Bavaria’s reputation.” In this context, Söder called on the Free Voters to “come to terms with this loss of reputation”. Söder described a result for the CSU close to 40 percent in the election on October 8th as a “reliable result”.
CSU is threatened with a historically bad result
In a recently published ZDF “Political Barometer”, Söder’s party only got 36 percent, which is below its historically poor election result in the 2018 state election with 37.2 percent. The coalition partner Free Voters, like the Greens, is currently at 16 percent. The former were apparently able to benefit from the affair surrounding the anti-Semitic leaflet and increased significantly compared to previous surveys.
Meanwhile, the Greens want to make it into the state government despite the rejection and verbal attacks that both state leader Söder and Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger regularly make against the party. “We want to represent the people of Bavaria in a decent, honest and respectful manner,” wrote parliamentary group leader Ludwig Hartmann on the short message service
The AfD scored 12 percent in the ZDF “Politbarometer” and the SPD 9 percent. The FDP is at 4 percent in the survey, so it has to worry about getting back into the state parliament. What is striking is that 43 percent of those surveyed are not yet sure whether and who they actually want to vote for.